Full Circle with Michael Palin is a 10-part 1997 documentary television series, first broadcast on BBC One from 31 August to 9 November 1997.

The series documented a 245-day, 50,000-mile (80,000 km) trip taken by Palin and a film crew around the rim of the Pacific Ocean in 1995 and 1996, beginning on the Diomede Islands between Alaska and Russia in the Bering Strait.

[1] The intent was to make the full anti-clockwise trip around the Pacific Rim and end up back on the Diomede Islands, but due to rough weather, he was unable to actually set foot back on the Islands again at the end of his journey, bringing him within two miles of completing the full circle.

Palin begins his trek around the Pacific Rim at Little Diomede Island, Alaska, in hopes of returning there in a year's time.

Palin and his crew find an alternative: they catch the last Alaska Airlines flight of the year from Anchorage to Petropavlovsk in Russia.

In Nagasaki, he visits Huis ten Bosch, a Dutch-themed park set to symbolise old trading ties with the Dutch.

He then "crosses" the border in the Joint Security Area at Panmunjeom into the North; however, he cannot venture much further than that without risking being shot or arrested.

Arriving in China at the port city of Qingdao, Palin checks into the Welcome Guest House, where Mao Zedong once spent a month right before the Great Leap Forward.

Palin gets a massage on the streets of Qingdao and then visits a winery in the Laoshan Mountains, where he samples Chinese chardonnay.

Taking an inland route via the Yangtze River, he views the construction for the Three Gorges Dam and notes how a lot of areas will be submerged after its completion in 2009.

Palin arrives in Vietnam at a time when it is reintroducing itself to the global stage, via a process called Đổi mới ("new thinking").

He also observes a local cricket match in the capital of Hanoi, although the BBC is not allowed to film because, due to the fact it took place on land owned by the Vietnamese military, it was deemed a security risk.

Catching a train going south to Saigon, he makes a stop in Huế and the Forbidden Purple City, an old imperial palace.

He chats with former headhunters and takes part in a special feast honouring the highest-ranking Iban in the Malaysian government.

In the DVD interview, Palin states that while in Kuching, he learned that his wife, Helen, needed surgery to remove a brain tumor.

Starting the second half of his journey at Cape Horn, Palin views the end of the continent of South America.

Venturing through the islands, he views the Torres del Paine National Park and the grave of an English explorer who committed suicide in the area.

After several attempts to get the train back on line, they are successful and eventually reach the Bolivian capital in the black of night.

He then catches a train to Quillabamba, and then moves on to Kiteni, where he meets a local pub owner who agrees to go up the Urubamba River with him.

He then offers to take him to lunch; however, his guide declines, stating that the restaurant he is going to is owned by the father of a drug trafficker.

Palin, however, continues, and is granted an interview (in Spanish) with horse breeder and close friend of Pablo Escobar, Don Fabio Ochoa,[2] who at one point was the father of 3 men on the FBI's 10 most wanted list.

In Mexico City, Palin attends a lucha libre match and listens to a lively mariachi band.

The next day, he observes the darker side of the city, as a graffiti protest is being led by a lucha libre wrestler named Super Barrio.

He then catches a bus to the town of Tijuana, where after observing a house in the shape of a woman, he walks to the United States–Mexico border, known as the "Tortilla Curtain".

Here he observes illegal immigrants "Pollos" attempting to enter the United States and evade the Border Patrol.

Venturing north to Los Angeles, he gets a bird's-eye view of the city from a local news helicopter reporter.

Palin's guide introduces him to a local gay policeman and then shows him the place where The NAMES Project originated in 1987.

In the nearby town of Squamish, he is the guest of honour at a loggers sports festival, where he takes part in one of the races.

Taking a train north through to Prince George, he realises that the closer he gets to completing the circle, his transportation options dwindle.

[3] However, due to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in the early hours of the morning, it was moved to BBC2 at the same time, to allow rolling news coverage to continue on BBC1.