Simon Reeve is known for his many adventures, many of which have involved some jaw-dropping moments from being detained by the KGB, to having a car bomb explode while he was having dinner in Colombia.
The 51-year-old documentary maker started out making travel shows but moved into making documentaries about incredible stories from across the world.
Closer to home, he's also shared his own story from humble beginnings in Acton, West London, to his troubled younger years including a tense relationship with his father and struggles with behavioural problems which saw him start fires, take a rambo knife to school and even set off explosives at Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre.
Writing in a piece for the Daily Mail, he recalled the incident, saying: "I remember unscrewing the bottom of a CCTV camera at Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre, packing an explosive device inside and then watching it blow up before racing off, laughing. It was a stupid, destructive thrill."
He started counselling at 14 and claims his final months of school were a "bit of a blur" and he left with no qualifications, unable to attend university. Reeve's mental health hit at an all-time low. He told The Mirror previously how it left him a "whisper" away from committing suicide at the age of 17. "I was a lost, hopeless teenager and I'd spiralled into a dark place and found myself on the edge of a bridge," he said.
Thankfully, he found a way out from the darkness and decided to go to take a life-changing solo trip. He explained: "I was crawling my way out of that dark place and decided to go to Scotland, which was way out of my comfort zone. I decided to climb a mountain in Glencoe and it changed my life. I went there because my mate Dwight had a video of Highlander which we'd watched loads and I loved the landscape."
And things continued to get better after he was given the opportunity to work as a post boy at The Sunday Times. With determination, he worked his way up to the cuttings library before helping a team of investigative journalists, which set him on the path he is on today. He told the Mirror: "Naturally, there's an assumption that I must come from a wealthy, travelling family and I must have gone to a very good school and university. There's a lot of people now who need to hear that you can still make a go of life if you've had a tricky start. I didn't go to university, don't have any qualifications, I was on the dole, I could have been long-term unemployed. I had a really tricky time, but I found my way through it with a lot of luck and some hard work."
And while he's gone on to have an incredibly successful career, Reeve has faced more troubles within his personal life over the years - from almost giving up on love to a devastating diagnosis about his fertility. The father-of-one opened up to The Mirror about his romantic struggles before meeting his wife, a camerawoman named Anya, who he was "smitten" with from the moment they met.
"I'd pretty much given up on serious relationships when I met her in my early thirties. I bumped into her at a party, saw her from across the room and went over and she held my gaze for just a second longer than was polite. I thought, 'Oh my God, I might be in here!' And I was, and still am," he said.
Reeve shared more details about their first meeting in 2018 ahead of his live show An Audience with Simon Reeve, saying: "We met at a rather glamorous party. I had a proper love-at-first-sight moment. I saw Anya across the room, and that was it - I was instantly smitten." The pair embarked on their relationship in London, but later settled down in Devon. "I was pretty happy in London, but my wife, who's also a Londoner, said, 'We've got to move to the countryside. This is our chance to go and live somewhere healthier,'" he continued. "She sort of forced me. Now whenever I say perhaps it might be a bit easier with my work if we moved back to London, my son tells me, 'You can, but I'm not going. I'll be really cross with you.' He loves it in the wild."
But despite finding love, his dreams of fatherhood continued to elude him. The filmmaker explained in a piece for The Guardian how finding out that his brother was going to have a baby spurred him into action. Fast approaching 40, he realised his dream of having lots of kids was going to come 'crashing down' around him.
"I'd always assumed we'd have a large litter, but in an instant I realised the prospect of that was all but gone. Of course, I'd wanted to keep up my adventures and was nervous about the responsibilities that would come with fatherhood. But having children had always been a priority. My wife and I had long had the opportunity. But for some reason we hadn't taken it," he wrote.
The couple talked it over and decided to start trying that very night, but after a few months with no success, they Reeve was dealt a devastating blow when doctors told him he was "basically infertile" and conceiving would be "impossible" as his sperm was deformed.
This diagnosis knocked him for six. Leaving the doctors, he recalled feeling as if he was in a "daze" and had been "drugged". He confessed to the Guardian: "I was so disconnected I couldn't mentally associate myself with my failure of a body. The sunny park looked like a film set with tons of people pushing prams. You never notice them more than when you're desperately trying for a child. I didn't speak to anyone about how I was feeling. I don't think it was shame or embarrassment, I just didn't recognise the importance of talking at the time. I started to drink too much."
Thankfully his wife pulled him out of his depression. They got a second opinion and explored alternative routes to becoming parents. Reeve discovered that a lifestyle change might help, so he took up British Military Fitness classes; swapped his underwear and clothing for looser fits and cut out chocolate and wine from his diet, as well as reducing his intake of caffeine, sugar and salt. Gradually they saw that his sperm score was improving, which left him feeling like he'd been "poisoning" himself before adopting his cleaner life.
In under a year, his sperm had changed so much that they were given the green light to try IVF and their very first round worked. Nine months later in 2011 they walked out of a hospital with their miracle baby, a son they named Jake. Reeve said the experience made him determined to regularly assess what he wants from life, after coming so close to losing his dream of becoming a father. Now, if he decides something is important he actively and aggressively tries to make it happen, instead of leaving it to chance.
Reeve also loves taking his son, 12, on adventures and walks with him. "I am a bit of a pain-in-the-bottom father who is always trying to find us a walk to do and strap on those boots," he told NewsChainOnline. "And actually, as long as I'm not forcing him to do it too much, he really loves it. As long as we're mixing it up, then I'm reasonably good at encouraging him – or bribing him! – to go for walks."
He also shared a few of the places in the UK that he's really keen to explore with his son, including Yorkshire, adding: "I haven't been to York since I was a nipper, really, and I'd love to go back there. One of my aims now is to take my lad – I want him to see Britain as well. One of the other places I'm keen to go to by train with my son is Lincoln Cathedral, one of the finest buildings on planet Earth – that's on our do-do list."
The explorer will be back on our screens tonight (August 8) in a new episode of Mediterranean with Simon Reeve, a four-part journey around the Mediterranean uncovering the extremes that tourists don't see. You can watch the show on BBC Two at 7pm.