Simon travels from the beautiful Pacific coast of Mexico, where he visits the luxurious holiday resorts of Baja California, before crossing the country's rugged interior. Along the way he goes on patrol with a heavily armed police unit in Culiacan, headquarters of the fearsome Sinaloa drug cartel, and gets more than he bargained for from a female Lucha Libre wrestler. The Tropic of Cancer skirts Havana, where Simon learns how allotments are helping the Cubans counter the effects of the US trade embargo; and in the Bahamas he discovers the hidden menace on the beautiful coral reefs that make these islands famous.

Simon dodges the Moroccan secret police in Western Sahara, travels on one of the world's longest trains in Mauritania, visits a forgotten refugee camp in the Algerian desert and takes a swim in a Libyan oasis.

Simon rejoins the Tropic in Egypt and follows it through Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Oman; next to the temple of Abu Simbal, he meets Nubians struggling to maintain their culture following the damming of the Nile; a dive in the Red Sea's pristine reefs.

In India, Simon's journey takes him from the coast of Gujarat in the west to Kolkata in the east; he learns of the violence between Hindus and Muslims in Ahmedebad and visits the site of one of the world's worst industrial accidents in Bhopal.

Simon goes on a perilous journey; in Bangladesh, he sails down the mighty Padma River and visits fishermen who use trained otters to drive fish into their nets; he then makes a covert trek into Burma to meet the Chin people.

Simon's journey begins in the jungles of Southeast Asia and ends in Hawaii; in Laos, he samples some local delicacies and in Vietnam, he discovers cruelly caged moon bears; he meets some of the world's highest achieving children in Taiwan.