User reviews

This is a show about two guys fulfilling a long held dream of adventure. During a four month journey they travel on their motorbikes from London to New York the long way round through Western Europe, little visited parts of Eastern Europe (including Kasakhstan, Mongolia and Siberia), Alaska and Canada. We see the preparation and the actual journey.

I can't stand reality shows, don't care about actors private lives, don't like motorcycles and only bought the DVD because my husband had seen some bits on TV and nagged me into it. I also didn't want to shell out for the DVD as I was very sceptical that we'd want to see this more than once.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. We ended up watching it in one go until 2am on a workday. Definitely want to watch it again. What a thrill ride.

I enjoyed the show because it engaged me as a viewer on many different levels: it was fun to watch two guys (three including the cameraman) having an excellent adventure. Interesting to see countries and cultures we know very little about (Kasakhstan, where the hell is that?). Touching and humbling to see the Unicef work they visited on the way.

There are funny bits and really scary bits, amazing and interesting people they meet on the way, moments of hardship and friendship, individual endurance and teamwork.

Travelling is a state of mind as much as being in different locations and we get treated to all the highs and lows you can expect on such a difficult journey. Ewan and Charlie are very honest and open about their feelings and thoughts. The show is as much about what they are experiencing as people as about the actual journey itself.

Ewan McGregor is of course a natural showman, I was quite amused to watch his transformation from bespectacled actor to somewhat scary easy rider. This was a nice visual reminder of the influence a long journey has on you as a person.

I found the show inspiring. Ultimately it reminds us that we are all just people, regardless of our race, location or occupation.

The boring bits: The camera-work is good to excellent (I would have liked to see and know more about the cameraman, after all he was part of the team). The soundtrack is good. Solid production values. A few nice extras on the DVD. In short, you get value for money.

A thoroughly enjoyable series. Not only was it serious and informative, but hugely funny too, not to mention moving. It was a real insight into other cultures and countries. Beautifully filmed, giving a 'warts and all' view, and yet emphasising how stunning these countries really are, and the people who live there. Makes you realize just how much we take for granted, and how tough life can be without a few home comforts! Refreshing to see celebs looking rough and struggling with emotions, hardships, mosquito's and dodgy cuisine! I have to confess that I would not normally watch anything like this, I expected it to be a couple of actors being macho, trying to win popularity (not like they need to!) by being REAL people. However, I underestimated them - it was awesome and I take my hat off to all those involved, not only out there in the wilderness, but the patient families also. It was a very brave and worthwhile thing to do. Good on ya.

I have never seen Ewan McGregor as a real "movie star" and Charley Boorman is a journeyman actor.

The camera-work is okay, sometimes excellent and often good.

I don't like motorbikes and abhor contrived "reality TV".

Why have I watched this series twice already then?

This is a story about 2 friends who go off around the world and see *real* wilderness -not David Attenburgh like Serengeti - the real wilderness that is on the doorstep of Europe. As much a political and social wilderness as a geographic one.

Ewan and Charley are genuinely interesting and real people. They get fed up, hungry, tired. They sometimes argue and often get scared. This all goes to make a fascinating insight into both a "land that TV documentaries forgot" and a relationship that is as real as the cultures they ride through.

Being on motorbikes, they are forced to experience the journey first hand and the films are all the better for this - in fact it would have been a waste of time without them.

Ewan said "it's all about the motorbikes". Well, it isn't. It's all about Charley and Ewan and - more importantly - their friendship. It's all about the people they meet and the fascinating and often moving experiences along the way. As it happens, they had 2 wheels and a reliable BMW engine to help them along - but don't dismiss the biggest land mass on Earth and 2 good friends.

This is what television should be about. Good on the guys for having the vision, determination and stupidity to do this. Thanks!

The only downside is it will make you want to get on a motorcycle and see the world.

:)

Except maybe not so much of it in one trip.

And maybe stay ... Ah, well, watch the series, you'll understand...

Ewan impressed us as being a pretty down-to-earth superstar - even from the get go. And if you have family, the ending will make you cry with tears of joy.

We couldn't stop watching, we had to watch all 7 episodes almost straight through. Even my 4 year old daughter found most of it interesting...

Brilliant, excellent, gritty, realistic, inspiring, And those are the bad bits.

This is a fabulous piece of television , and I would recommend that you watch it.

If you like bikes, or even if you don't, it won't matter, this is a class apart.

The whole premise is so real, with a warts and all approach, you feel at one with the two guys, at times I was helping them, and sharing their laughs and their problems.

I can't recommend it highly enough

This is truly is a great way to document the journey of the two best friends doing the things they love to do: Riding their bike and travel around the world.

And it happens to be our very own Obeiwan : Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. Starting off their bike from London on the 115 days journey to New York; crossing three continental – Europe, Northern Asia, And Northern America.

This is somewhat one of the most pleasant documentaries to watch. It is not just because we know we have an actual star in it but also the document shot in a very friendly ways and to the extent: personal. The document capture the meaning of friendship between the two best friends and new friends like one can see excessive appearance of producer, camera man, and the local people and so on. But most importance of all it is passion of traveling and riding bike.

Recommendation: Definitely A Must Watch

Rating: 8/10 (Grade: A-) Please

Rate My Review Yes/No, After Reading. Thanks!!

I bought this DVD just before christmas'04, after reading an interview with Mcgregor on the internet. This is kind of a 'Michael Palin' documentary, but with two good friends and very funny camera man. The DVD gives a personal account of the journey that when you watch it you feel like you have become a member of the team and after a short while you begin to connect emotional with both of the guys. It is often very funny and the humour generated is simply two men having the time of their lives while seeing and experiencing some of the world's most beautiful places and unusual cultures and traditions. Ewan Mcgregor in particular is amusing and you learn is very good at impressions and coming up with comedic anecdote's about his life. The book that accompanies the series (also the same name) goes hand in hand with the footage you see on the DVD, and becomes essential reading when it comes to filling in the blanks left out of the footage. The book reads like a diary and is littered with banter between the guys and honest accounts of their feelings about their lives and how it reflects on the trip. I recommend this DVD to anyone who is a fan of the 'Kilted One' but to anyone who enjoys an adventure.

Whenever I buy DVDs I always pop them in the player to make sure they work and then shelve them. I popped L.W.R. into the player and I ended up watching three hours of the series before I realised the time.

This is truly compulsive viewing as, no doubt has been said earlier, it is not the standard celebs on a cushy ride under the guise of reality TV. There are times when there is genuine fear for their safety - and lives, and shows a real insight into the genuine personalities of Charlie and Ewan. Their is also a great sense of personal effort and struggle despite the well organised support crew who are, in the main, nowhere to be seen.

The one thing I felt could have improved this was more screen time, and so a better understanding of the role and personality of Claudio, their cameraman.

This is one of the few DVDs I own which gets a regular playing and it loses none of its appeal/humour/drama whatsoever.

Fascinating and Addictive.

10/10

My sister was raving about 'The Long Way Round' after she bought it on DVD, she lent me hers and I watched both discs in a weekend! as i was hooked. It was the best television programme I have seen in a very long time. I went and bought it and have been raving about it to anyone & everyone since. I only knew about the series originally as Ewan was on Fridy night with Jonathon Ross and it went quiet from there. It was on 'Sky' but again didn't hear much about it which is a travesty. I won't go into detail of the programme as this will spoil your viewing. It'll make you laugh out loud, worry about them, will them on and you'll just really enjoy it but prepare to feel slightly inept due to the tenacity of Ewan, Charlie & the team.

This is the one and only adventure I always fantasized about as a kid and I also used to have a fondness of motorcycling but sadly I never took it up. I just wish they'd spent more time filming in Western Europe before they went on to Eastern Europe and Asia.

Imagine that you love riding motorcycles and are also fabulously rich. You decide to ride around the world by a sort-of northern route. How to approach the problem? Why, buy huge quantities of costly goodies, pile it onto two suffering behemoth bikes, and hire two SUVs full of camera gear to follow you all the way and take pictures. In other words, do it just the way a couple of wealthy but saucy young British men would have done it a couple hundred years ago, using the fruits of technology wrought since then. The result, after the proper investment in editing, is pure entertainment, and works beautifully when taken as such. Ewan and Charlie float across Eurasia in a haze of movie star glamour. Everywhere they stop, people gather to take pictures, seek autographs, host the best party. The ideal, the execution, and the telling of the story are all frankly surreal. The landscape fills it out with the infinite space of Genghis Khan's homeland. The abiding image... a motorcycle, mired to the seat in mud.

When I've seen it first on Viasat Explorer, I was stunned!!!! The great show especially the moments at Russia and Mongolia where the crew meet most of the difficulties on the long way round. Warm and sensitive, the show here touches you even if you are not a bike person.

(And now I replay the tape over and over again!) I was crying in tears watching most of the episodes 'cause this show is not like any other show, this is the real thing! Emotions, drama, excitement, homesickness,... from the bottom of their hearts.

If you haven't seen this series.... YOU JUST HAVE TO! (sorry for my poor English,..... and all the best to all the crew of the Long Way Round !!!! especially Ewan, Charlie and Claudio )

I have a love-hate dilemma with this docu made for TV special for several reasons. As a enormous fan of Ewan McGregor, the principle of a trip to experience the world seems a great notion, however, there is more to this story than simply two blokes out for a lark on bikes. This much touted adventure for the extreme sports fans as well featured the star and his best friend, actor Charlie Boorman, on BMW motorcycles on an around the world vacation. Because of Ewan's star power, the pair are able to offset the cost of this adventure by hiring a television producer and charming companies to donate their equipment and services including two enormous BMW touring cycles, 4x4 SUVs, security equipment, camping equipment, designer duds for biking, tools, toolboxes, and the list goes on and on. They also had a contract with Bravo TV and a book deal in the bag. This is hardly a living off the land excursion, but an expedition that might turn into the ill-fated McGregor- Boorman Party. Most offensive perhaps, is the statement that the adventure was to raise awareness and monies for UNICEF charities for children, not to profit McGregor and Boorman. Whether this is true is never revealed and if funds were raised for the organization, it's not disclosed, however, the television commercials and internet exposure was worldwide, much to McGregor's surprise. He doesn't seem to understand how expansive the web is worldwide.

Throughout the two discs set, McGregor and Boorman provide reality TV one-on-one interviews with their personal diaries of the day's activities. It is an informal discussion, usually provided after the pair have settled in for the evening and are about to retire. The humorous quips and obvious friendship and respect between McGregor and Boorman keeps the situation light, but as the conditions of the road deteriorate, so do the spirits of the star.

While Boorman struggles to remain healthy and keep the pair on the road, McGregor is at the mercy of his own off-road inexperience, away from wife, kiddies, and his security blanket, it is his own inability to be of tougher stuff that is exposed. He whines, they both whine, and when it becomes almost intolerable, they meet situations and people who live so far below the standards of their pampered lifestyles it is obscene to complain without seeming hypocritical. I wanted to yell, "grow up" at the screen.

Although invited to share the homes of kind folks along the road, nomads, and simple working class individuals, the experience of seeing the world as they've never known it is still trying for Ewan. It is only when the pair is exposed to the remains of the soviet block countries is there the beginnings of a reality check for the pair. Children dying of exposure to Chernobyl, children who live under the streets to survive, and nomads who are so foreign to McGregor that he at times seems childish and unprepared for their hard lives. His depression is real, yet, didn't anyone tell him what to expect?

Only when the pair reach the United States, Alaska, through Canada, and into the northern states to NYC do the pair seem to relax among English speaking, cell-phone toting, westerners like themselves. But, it is during the hardship of the Road of Bones that McGregor seemed to finally grow up and with that experience under his belt, his entry to New York is a decided letdown.

I enjoy the personalities, but the premise still has an uncomfortable aura of privilege versus poverty that makes for uncomfortable watching through most of the series.

I got this series on DVD for Christmas as at the moment I'm quite interested in traveling. Its brilliant, Ewan and Charlie are such strong characters and have that great attitude that I try to have that life is just a laugh. Its good to see too that actors are not all Clooneys and Pitts and that they have a desire for real life and don't like to brag about there riches. I have a real dream to see the world and this is an inspiring step in the right direction.

I'm saving up as we speak for my motorbike and then ill be off London to New York - The Extra Extra Long way round. From London I'll cross the channel to France then through to Spain and across from Gibralter to Morroco then across to Eygpt. Then Over to China and down through the rest of Asia to Australia. When in Australia i'll cross to South Africa and then to South Ameerica and up to New York. Simple.

Anyway Great Series, well worth a look.

"This trips about motorbikes, it always has been and it always will be" Ewan McGregor

If this doesn't rate a 10 nothing should. Truly one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. It helps if you're a motorcycle fanatic like myself but even if not, this is greatly entertaining. I couldn't stop watching till it was all over and it caused me to search within myself for the answer to the question, have I done enough in my life, am I stretching myself, will I have regrets when I look back through my 80 year old eyes? This series reaffirms that it's the most difficult times that can be the most rewarding. The only part I hated about watching this was that I had to sit in a comfy chair to do so when I really rather would have been in the midst of the action slogging it out in the mud.

Who needs a scripted 'buddy movie' when you have real buddies on a trip of a lifetime? I've been enjoying the recently edited 10 part (rather than the original 6 part) version of the series on Sky One and am hoping a new directors cut DVD is released soon. The original run, although excellent did give the impression that there was so much more of the trip that hadn't been shown and this extended re-run does the show even more justice.

I guess maybe the American people that are eagerly anticipating the DVD might end up getting the extended series?

The book accompanying the Series should definitely be read if your a fan of the show. The personal insights by Charlie and Ewan are great and it's interesting to get two perspectives on certain situations; a pretty funny confession from both of them was that out of boredom on long legs of the journey they would purposely avoid a pothole at the last possible moment knowing that poor Claudio who would be directly behind would never have a enough reaction time to avoid them!

I was intrigued from the start at Ewan McGregor, major and rightly so movie star, for wanting to undertake something so un-Hollywood as a months-long bike trip. And being a big fan of the man, I made a point of checking out the ensuing DVD, expecting a bit of a bore still.

The first two episodes, which concern only the preparations and not the trip itself, left me physically and emotionally drained. The two adventurers, McGregor and his friend Charley Boorman (son of renowned director John Boorman) are so human and devoid of hypocrisy or flashiness that it leaves you with nothing but their pure passion and investment in their quest. Such that from the get go I was swept along, and felt quite heavy-hearted when it was all over.

The basic premise of this series is that, as mentioned, McGregor and Boorman make a round-the-world trip on "motorbikes", from London to Russia, then with a quick plane fare pick up in Alaska all the way to New York. A third motorist accompanies them with a camera (a poor lad who confronts the same hardship as the two "heroes"), while a support crew follows in trucks on easier roads. What comes of it is anything but a Bike trip. It is a journey to the end of a man's expectation and understanding of himself and his planet. The things they see, people they meet and obstacles they overcome makes the viewer rediscover life with ever maturing eyes.

The visual quality itself is nothing short of an accomplishment, given the difficulty level of filming from a motorcycle in terrains that would bring any grown man crying on their knees. Breathtaking imagery and editing are equalled only by the most engaging and exciting soundtrack I have ever heard attached to a simple documentary.

Highly recommended to absolutely everyone. It plays not only as a documentary, but as a dramatic comedy as well as reality show. Quick tip for enjoyment - resist the urge to watch it all at once. It really IS draining. And for those who fall for it as much as I did, a second series has just started airing in the UK, called "Long Way Down", about this time a trip to South Africa.

For the motorbike enthusiast, Long Way Round is a must-watch. It relates the experiences of two friends who bike from London to New York through the width of Western Europe, Central and Eastern Asia, and North America. By means of this journey, the show also serves as a travelogue by featuring the diversity in natural relief and societal culture across the land while also stressing the virtuous commonalities in all humanity. Very real emotional moments and doubts about their endeavour's success are captured on film along with various funny and memorable encounters with the local populace. The multiple cameras and the protagonists' daily diaries give the audience a true sense of the magnitude of their task, the frustrations and challenges the pair face, as well as their ultimately optimistic outlook despite all their trials and tribulations. And this is all accomplished without losing that sense of it being just two friends who like biking and wanted to have a grand adventure!

That said, Long Way Round does have a few shortcomings that should be pointed out. Much of the journey through Western Europe is glossed over, and the North American jaunt reduces the general touristic appeal in a favour of a zoom in on the biking hobby. Important aspects like Charley's injury are never alluded to after an initial mention. There are some poor decisions made during the preparation phase, like not giving adequate thought as to how to best load the bikes, a failing which could have proved catastrophic to their venture. The final retrospective episode doesn't add much value to the series, being mostly comprised of shots from previous episodes. Also, while I don't fully agree, more critical observers may contend that the presence of a full support team in constant close contact with the bikers reduces the charm of the depicted undertaking and takes the show into more reality TV territory, especially considering that the duo are treated as celebrities rather than ordinary individuals.

But those criticisms notwithstanding, Long Way Round is a charming show that can appeal to both bikers and travel lovers. Its production and release was a big reason for the boom in adventure biking at the time of airing and it continues to inspire people today.

A staged travelogue with, and about, two overgrown adolescents supposedly riding motorcycles from London to New York.

This series goes to show two men can do anything, as long as they have sponsors to donate tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment including new BMW bikes, trainers and advisers, a staff of numerous people to do the dirty work of getting visas and making arrangements, and several "support vehicles" to bail them out of any real difficulties. This was billed as a road trip, but in the end, it winds up being little more than an ego trip.

As entertainment, the series is padded with irrelevant footage, presumably because they had to guarantee a certain run-time minimum to get the project sponsored.

Rather than waste your time on this, take your own bike out for a spin.