If you're planning a trip this winter, you might try watching this six-part 2008 television series from the BBC ahead of time. Although, be warned, it's a travel show unlike any you've seen before. The premise: Stephen Fry, the wry and sometimes facetious British actor, author and comedian, takes a whimsical journey through every U.S. state in a London-style cab, stopping along the way at some likely and unlikely spots - a Cold War-era bunker that's now a hippie's dwelling, a major college football game, Ted Turner's homestead and a truck stop on Interstate 80. Whether he's touring the U.S./Canada line with a border patrol agent or visiting Miami in an outfit more appropriate for a British professor in late fall, Fry's observations on American life are often witty, sometimes sarcastic and occasionally insulting, although always entertaining. Look for the series on DVD or on Netflix.

- ALEX NUNES