Border patrol

Here’s where you can find some travel inspiration from your comfiest chair, starting – with potent timing – on America’s contentious border with Mexico... so will Sue Perkins build a wall or bridges?

While we’ve been overly focused on our ovens recently – banana bread is officially over, okay? – Sue Perkins has left Bake Off’s soggy bottoms behind her and refocused on travel. Her charm, tart wit and empathy made travelogues about the Mekong and Ganges rather watchable, given the slight edge of someone slightly out of their comfort zone.

Her latest two-part adventure, Borderland (BBC), certainly has a timely sizzle to it: investigating the border between Mexico and the USA. As she travels over 3,000-contentious-kilometres, Perkins takes in the astonishing scenery, meets locals on both sides and explores the issues – refugees, drug wars – that have turned this cartographic boundary into such a political hot spot.

Elsewhere on the schedules, the new Sky Nature channel squares up to the recent natural history epics from the Beeb and Netflix with its six-part Equator (available on catch-up). Following the line from the Galápagos to South-east Asia, hitting the Amazon, Andes and The Rift Valley en route, what it may lack in Attenborough, it more than makes up for in cinematography and effortlessly making difficult information easily digestible. Which is more that we can say for our banana bread.

by Levison Wood

£30,

Ilex Press

The adventurer and author adds another string to his bow. This collection of his photography documents the communities that Wood has met on his journeys, as they deal with the impact of war and ecological disaster, revealing a humanity that shines in the face of an absurd adversity.

Signs of Life: To the ends of the Earth with a doctor