The journey route included the following countries and territories: Gibraltar, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Ceuta, Spain.

The series consists of four 60-minute episodes, as follows: The programme starts in Gibraltar, shown to be a bit of the United Kingdom only a few miles from Africa.

From there he takes the iron ore train south to Choûm, then by road on to Atar, where he encounters the Paris – Dakar rally and talks to Dave Hammond, the only remaining British entrant at that point.

The episode starts with Palin crossing the Sénégal River, leaving Mauritania and entering the town of Saint-Louis in Senegal.

Palin moves on to Dakar and watches (and takes part in) a late-night wrestling match, and then talks to the owner of a jazz café.

While with the Dogons, Palin experiences getting gunpowder blown into his face from the Dogon hunter's old blunderbuss, eats a meal in a sweltering 56 degree (134 °F) location, witnesses a funeral dance, and is introduced to the blacksmith, whose secondary job is to circumcise the boys (his wife performs female genital cutting on the girls).

At the town of Mopti Palin tries to get ferry passage up the Niger River, but the low water level makes this impossible.

Michael Palin did make it to the mysterious Timbuktu, and this episode opens with views of the famous mosque built of mud.

At Tabelot, Palin visits an oasis, where a camel is used to raise water from a deep well using a long rope and a goatskin bucket.

Next, he boards an Algerian passenger plane and flies north to Hassi-Messaoud, an oil extraction and refining town; a man-made luxury oasis in the middle of the desert.

To gain entry, Michael Palin and his team have joined up with a British veterans' tour, and he mingles with the 80-year-old former "Desert Rats" who reminisce about the Battle of Tobruk.

He joins an octopus fishing crew on a small boat at Djerba, visits a family who live in caves at El Haddej (the scene of his crucifixion in Life of Brian) and tries smoking a shisha (a large water pipe) in a café in Sousse.

The last two days are spent in Ceuta visiting an EU-operated detention facility for Africans trying to reach Europe, and talking to a woman on a Spanish beach about the illegal immigrants who die trying to make it across the "dire straits" to the "promised land".