A Canadian produced series about exploring different places that make amazing vacation spots. Not just in Canada, but places throughout the world including Guatemala, Costa Rica, Miami, New York, Yucatan, Western Canada and so much more. Every episode features insider interviews with vacationers, tourists, and even locals as they talk about the fun times to be had and the main attractions at the location, while the host explores the place, getting less screen time than everyone else.
There really isn’t a whole lot to say about this series other than it’s basically a Canadian crew on the road around the world. The hosts tend to be more variable than the locations, ranging from locals on a road trip to lesser known individuals and actors who appear in quirky to not-so-good movies. One season it’s a long-haired adventurer named Drew Shankman and in another we get treated to occasional actor D. Garnet Harding. In other episodes we just get the show hosted by guys who plan some sort of trip and spend their time on camera talking about the trip and the fact that they spent their evenings getting hammered on expensive beer.
In most of the earlier seasons, the inconsistency between widescreen interview shots and fullscreen location shots is a minor annoyance, along with the occasional moment when the bg noise is more audible than anyone talking and nobody bothers to add subtitles except for foreign languages. While the show was basic with no plot, the locations shown provided good coverage and the content was pretty good. It did last a good four years anyway, so it was probably widely appreciated by folks looking for decent vacation spots.
My friends and I were the featured travelers on the Amsterdam episode of Alternate Routes, with Garnet Harding hosting, filmed back in summer 2000. Such fun memories! Wish I could find a copy of the episode; it used to be on Amazon Prime Video but no longer.