Now on BBC News, time for The Travel Show.
Hello, and welcome to The Travel Show with me, Lucy Hedges.
This week, we're looking back at some of the amazing trips
and awesome adventures we've had so far on the show this year.
Here is just a taste of what's coming up.
You're actual no good to me here if you can't function
and you can't fight.
OK, I'll do my best.
Are you ready to go now?
I am ready to go down.
All right.
This place is like the Chelsea Flower Show on steroids.
There you go, run out, run out!
Well, if if you enjoyed that then stick around and relive some
of our favourite moments with us.
We're kicking off at one of world's favourite TV shows,
well, apart from this one, of course.
Game of Thrones ended back in May, much to the disappointment
of millions of fans all over the world but its legacy lives
on in Northern Ireland, as Crystal found out last month.
OK, so I have a confession - I am a giant Game of Thrones geek.
And I'm super excited, because this place has to be top
of the list for any true superfan.
Welcome to Castle Ward, or to what many TV viewers
will know as Winterfell.
And well, when in Winterfell...
Arrrgh!
Evening my lady, where do you hail from?
From London.
London.
And which house do you represent?
Oh, I'm not sure I have a house.
House of Larwood.
House of Larwood, never heard of them, sounds
like something the Night's Watch would have dragged in.
I believe you are here to learn how to do archery.
I need people to hunt or to fight.
OK.
Are you up to the task?
I hope so.
I hope so too, otherwise there is a penalty.
Oh.
Oh, a beheading...
That seems measured.
Absolutely, because you are no good to me here at Winterfell if you
can't hunt and you can't fight.
I will do my best.
Thank you.
In this series, no character is safe from a grisly end,
so it never hurts to know what you're doing
with a bow and arrow.
Select your arrows by the tip, never by the feathers and never
further down the shaft.
OK?
Think of it coming out of a quiver, three fingers on the drawing string
and then draw back so that it brings to your right eye.
Loose!
All right.
I hit actual thing!
Your first arrow ever and you hit the target.
OK.
Archer ready.
Draw!
Hold...
Loose!
Look at that.
Yes!
Well done, you.
Yeah!
So this place used to be a farm and yet now it's
a huge tourist attraction.
How did that happen?
We are where Game of Thrones started, so it's the perfect place
to start your journey, to go on and do some of the other
sites that are around.
Yes, they have gone off to Croatia, yes, they have gone off to Iceland,
yes, they have gone off to Morocco and so on, and that's fine,
but most of it is shot here.
And it has turned into what we now know as screen tourism,
something we have never had before.
Yes we have the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage site
and it is beautiful, and all that, but people used to go
there and there alone, and then they would take off.
Now they come to see many other parts of our province.
Crystal having an epic time in Northern Ireland exploring
Game of Thrones country.
Up next, last month also marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo
moon landings and we could not let the anniversary of this truly
momentous moment pass without marking it so we sent Rajan
to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to find out how it felt
to be there back in 1969.
The exhibits here are authentic space-ready vehicles that in the end
didn't make the into orbit, including this command
service module.
And this is the centrepiece.
A magnificent Saturn V rocket just like the one that went to the moon.
Now upright, it's taller than the Statue of Liberty,
with 7.5 million of thrust.
Now it's comprised of three stages, two of which were jettisoned before
the astronauts returned to the Earth's atmosphere.
It's incredible.
Between 1967 and 1974, 13 missions launched
using a Saturn V rocket, including the ten Apollo trips.
This is one of only three of these rockets left in the world today.
I've got to say, all that wiring and cabling, it looks
really exposed and raw.
But I guess it worked.
This is a lunar module for Apollo 11.
In charge of the engineering of the module was the aptly named
Charlie Mars, and he says the atmosphere was electric.
We were in the operations and control building at Kennedy,
it's where we made all the vehicles and did our tests.
I can still remember to this day hearing the count from Buzz Aldrin,
hearing what was going on, so much fuel, move so far,
and the complete silence.
When "The Eagle has landed" you could hear the sigh
in the complete room, you could hear people take a breath.
Tranquillity base here.
The Eagle has landed are words that every schoolboy of the coming
generation are going to have to learn and pass on to
succeeding generations.
The whole Moon programme itself was all a part of politics.
You know?
What are we going to do to get away from this disaster in Cuba
and what are we going to do about all this integration activity
and what are we going to do about the furore over there?
We need something different for people to latch onto.
Well, let's go to the moon.
MISSION CONTROL:Oh, it's beautiful Mike.
It really is.
We came from all over the world, literally, you know,
into this environment and we worked our tails
off for as many years.
To get to the moon in the decade, you know, it required a lot
of personal sacrifice.
John Tribes says the astronauts knew they were going to be in the public
eye, but didn't quite realise how much scrutiny there would be.
Neil Armstrong was a quiet guy but he always was a gentleman.
He was always polite.
That's you and Neil Armstrong?
Yep.
When you've spent 50 years of your life in the public
eye, Neil backed away.
He didn't want to sign anything, he didn't want photos taken,
he just wanted to be private person Neil Armstrong.
At this museum in nearby Titusville, consoles and various space mission
memorabilia donated by astronauts and space workers are
lovingly showcased.
This week is very much about honouring the achievements of
the past, but at the Kennedy Space centre, one eye is firmly fixed
on producing astronauts and technicians for the future
with hands-on training experiences for younger visitors.
They'll be needed.
We are in a real renaissance now.
The nation is building three capsules to return to the Moon,
two of them are being built here.
We're building big rockets, state-of-the-art satellite
facilities, it's a good time.
Because the birthplace of American spaceflight is now reinventing
itself as America's spaceport.
Our long-term vision is to make Central Florida the gateway
to all of the economic activity that's going to be occurring
in the solar system over the next 50-100 years.
Well, stay with us because still to come, Mike is on a mission
to explore the Great Barrier Reef.
Wow!
Adi goes behind the scenes at a gigantic garden in Dubai.
And I try my hand at an iconic street game in New York.
There you go, run out, run out!
Funny how they never asked me back.
Let go of the bat!
Now, Australia's Great Barrier Reef must be on many travellers' bucket
lists but is there a sustainable way to get to explore its
fragile ecosystem?
Well, the designers behind an innovative new sub think they've
found the answer so a while back, we sent Mike to jump
on board and go for a dive.
Scuba-diving is an amazing way to see what's hiding
underneath these waves, but if you can't scuba-dive,
there are other ways you can do that too.
You can snorkel, you can take a glass-bottomed boat,
but there's a new kid in town.
Something quite exciting.
This sub belongs to Harvey.
He's teamed up with a rideshare app and has been hiring it
out for short trips.
They're just getting it ready for us now.
It's still not cheap though, at A$3,000 for two passengers.
What an incredible thing.
That's just over US$2,000 or about £1,600.
This is it, the submersible.
But Harvey thinks this is the future.
Now so many more people can get underwater.
You've got a ton of people that can't for various reasons.
You have a tonne of people who can't scuba-dive.
This gives people that ability to get underwater
and explore and see what there is under the water.
The submarine industry is still in its infancy.
Currently there are no other operators on this reef.
Many deep sea adventures in other parts of the world require
you have very deep pockets.
It's a small industry but it is growing and expanding.
Submarines are inherently expensive, the rides are fairly expensive,
but it is changing and costs are coming down, price
points, things like that.
Aquatica is working very hard to come to market with lower cost
submersibles to be able to get more of them in operation.
Getting into the sub.
This is usually the tricky...
Fun and games it might be, but in the safety briefing,
you are under no illusions that this is a serious piece of kit.
Do listen closely to the staff.
Do inform us of any pre-existing health conditions.
Do bring your camera.
You've got your camera?
Check.
I've got my camera.
Don't wear excessive perfume.
Want to smell?
You smell great, we're good to go.
Don't bring any matches or lighters.
No.
Don't drink lots of fluids before you dive.
No bathrooms!
There is no toilet!
OK, I think we're good, then.
If you wouldn't mind hopping on the scale for me.
Guess my weight.
I'm going to say 86.
85!
Dude!
Not bad.
You win the prize.
There you go, so if you wouldn't mind hopping on here.
This is for trimming the submarine, we weigh all passengers,
kind of like a helicopter ride.
86!
I knew it.
It's a tight squeeze in the three-man sub.
It's actually a repurposed research vehicle and after these
tourist trips it's off to the British Virgin Islands
to survey some of the damage left by Hurricane Irma.
All right, are you ready to go down?
I am ready to go down!
Here we go.
We have just started the descent under the water
to the Great Barrier Reef.
Look at this.
The water is slowly coming up and about to engulf us.
I feel a little bit nervous.
Once you're fully submerged I have a feeling you're
going to completely forget.
Wow.
The sub can dive to a maximum depth of 125 metres.
We're just a few metres under the surface but there's still great
marine life at these depths.
Here we have some chromis in the front, the little blue ones.
In the coral.
Yeah, I believe those are chromis.
And we have scissor-tailed sergeants or something
like that, the striped ones?
Golden damsel, those are the yellow guys.
You're good at this game.
I'm getting really good.
I got a chi chi.
This is incredible.
I can see how if you were a bit scared to scuba-dive,
or maybe you have claustrophobia...
I was thinking it was going to be much more
claustrophobic, but it's not.
The acrylic just opens it right up.
Topside, please advise us when the dive boat has passed.
Over.
Can you tell us a bit about how this is powered?
The submarine is fully electric.
We have a 240 volt DC electrical system, electric thrusters
powered by batteries.
And that's about it, it's very simple.
So, no emissions?
No, no emissions, no gas, no oil, no diesel, no nothing.
It's incredibly environmentally safe.
Nothing to leak into the ocean, battery powered, and we could charge
her up and away we go.
We all know the coral is quite fragile.
Is there any issue in bringing something so big
down under the water?
Not at all.
As you can see, she has tremendous control of the sub.
Buoyancy control and whatnot and manipulation with the thrusters.
She can park it anywhere you want, can keep it nice and high off
the reef and with the view you have, all travelling around,
it works out very well and incredibly in control.
Do you want to try it?
Can I drive it?
Yeah.
I might just grab it back if things go a little bit...
Wow, OK.
Just hold it level.
I'll just do the vertical for you, you're just going to drive.
Why don't you take us a little bit closer.
So I do...
Just forward.
This is forward?
Yeah.
Whoa!
Just don't touch those ones.
I'll do a little bit back, not too much.
You don't want to run into the reef.
That's a bad idea.
I'm not qualified for this.
Actually, it's very much like a PlayStation controller,
like a video game.
Copy that.
Perfect.
Over.
We are right in line with the jetty.
We have made our whole round trip so we will pop up to the surface
and head back to the dock.
And it's all over.
That was fun, though.
Some say we know more about the surface of the Moon
than we do the bottom of the ocean.
What an opportunity this is to glimpse a world that so few
people get a chance to see.
Well, we're off to Dubai now.
Not a place that always gets good press when it
comes to sustainability.
But they're making serious attempts to redress that impression.
Back in June, Ade paid a visit to the most ginormous garden
you are ever likely to see that claims it takes sustainability
very seriously.
Heading through the entrance here at the Miracle Garden,
three things immediately strike you.
First, the smell, then it's the colour, and then,
there's the scale.
This place is enormous!
Since it opened on Valentine's Day back in 2013, almost 8 million
people have come to take a look around the Miracle Garden.
And I'm off to meet the man whose idea it all was.
Dubai's full of surprises.
Where did you get your inspiration from?
Actually, my inspiration, first of all, I am a landscaping engineer.
And since I was a child, always reading about heaven,
paradise, and it is filled with flowers, so always
this idea in my brain, and always when I see my kids
playing, you know, games on screens, on TV, I always...
It comes to my mind, really, I need something
for people to go out.
So this has inspired me to create something to take people outside,
to take people to nature.
And it's on such a grand scale!
So many flowers here!
How many flowers do you have in this park?
We are always sustaining above 50 million flowers.
50 million flowers?!
Yes.
This place must take a lot of water.
Where do you get it from and how do you keep it sustainable?
Actually, we are using the recycled water from Dubai municipality,
so all the grey water over the city, the municipality recycle
it and pump it to us, and from our side we refilter this
water and convert it to very high-quality water.
And what about your challenges?
What is the biggest challenge for you?
Actually, the biggest challenge is just the wind.
If we have strong wind, it is really our best challenge.
We can't control it.
We can control pests, we can control irrigation,
temperature, everything can be controlled but not the wind.
This place is like the Chelsea Flower Show on steroids.
To finish off, I like to consider myself pretty sporty,
but when it came to a ballgame that's legendary in New York -
and I'm not talking about baseball - I clearly had some things to learn.
This is a bit embarrassing.
MUSIC.
If you come to the Bronx in spring or summer,
there's a street called Stickball Boulevard where, most
Sundays, Emperors Stickball League keep this tradition alive.
OK, so far as I can tell, each player has three
attempts to serve the ball, one attempt to hit it,
if they miss the ball they're out.
If they hit it it's about getting to first base,
second base, et cetera.
To keep the game going, the street is closed off to traffic.
SHOUTING.
There is a lot of smack talk as well.
A lot of smack talk.
In fact, I've been told smack talk accounts for 90% of the game.
But there's also, you know, a lot of camaraderie.
Everyone's just having fun.
It's just about a bunch of friends getting together, hanging out.
How did you get into it?
We're all washed up baseball players.
That's a part of it.
The other thing is it's a tradition.
Stickball is a tradition that has always happened in New York City.
And lot of our parents kind of like brought us into the game.
My family's been playing, wow, over 50 years.
I remember a young kid going to see my uncles play downtown.
That're really cool.
What brought you into it?
No.
LAUGHTER.
New York Emperors Stickball League was established in the mid-80s.
We've got approximately 100 members playing stickball.
One of the league's founders was called Steve Mercado,
he was a fireman in Engine Company 40, who died in the 9/11 attacks.
It was his vision to just try to push this event, this league to -
he always wanted it to be an Olympian event.
So Memorial Day weekend we have teams from California coming,
we have teams from Florida, Orlando, Miami, Tampa, we constantly
try to uphold the vision for him.
His two sons, as a matter of fact, play in a league now.
But it's just a legacy we want to continue for him.
The power of some of these swings - you just, you can hear it.
I don't know if I am going to hit it that hard but I am
going to give it my best shot.
All right, let's go.
Come on.
Let's do it.
Just grab a stick.
Alrighty.
There is one right there.
OK, all right.
Bit of encouragement there.
All right.
Let it bounce once.
Step into the ball.
OK!
LAUGHTER.
I feel like the ball clipped the bat.
I'm going for a clean hit this time.
All right, so this time you've got to run to first base.
All right.
Now they're going to talk trash though.
Keep an eye on the ball.
LAUGHTER.
Argh, don't say it!
Don't say it!
OK.
Just toss it out.
That's good.
There you go.
Run out!
Let go of your bat.
LAUGHTER.
I think I'm going to leave it to the professionals.
I need a bit more practice.
Well, that's it for this week.
Catch us if you can next week when Christa's off to Scotland
to take in some ancient buildings that are older than the pyramids.
What do you think top speed is for the really
accomplished curricle paddler?
Not much quicker than I'm going right now.
Don't forget, you can follow us on social media,
where you can share your travel stories with the rest of the world.
Until next time though, from me, Lucy Hedges,
and the rest of The Travel Show team, it's goodbye.