He may be one of Britain’s rising TV stars, but travel is a great leveller, and Dylan Llewellyn proves as inept as anyone else at the challenge of finding a bed for the night in Escárcega, in the heart of Mexico’s Yucatán.

With his mother, Jackie, he takes heart when he is pointed to a building… and finds himself trying to book a room at the local hospital. “This feels like a fever dream,” he says.

This is one of the memorable scenes in the first episode of the third series of Celebrity Race Across the World, which has just begun its run on BBC One. The reality show has proved a consistent hit since its non-celebrity version debuted in 2019. After five regular versions and the previous two celebrity series, it seems viewers can’t get enough of the premise: four pairs of contestants, united by family, marital or friendship bonds, race to get from an overseas starting point to a final destination, using any means of transportation other than air travel, and armed only with a paper map (remember those!), a GPS tracker and a daily budget of £30 each.

This year’s celebrity version sees a typically broad range of players: as well as Llewellyn and Jackie, we have siblings Roman and Harleymoon Kemp, Anita Rani and her father, Bal Nazran, and couple Molly Rainford and Tyler West. They must travel 5,900km across central America, starting at Mexico’s most easterly point, on the Isla Mujeres and finishing on the Peninsula de la Guajira in Colombia.

Why Mexico? Series producer Philip McCreery told the RTS at an exclusive screening that, as in previous series, he had a list of criteria in building the journey: “We’re trying to make an adventure that you could not buy, on a route that will take 32 days, as well as something that takes in different landscapes and cultures – a journey through deserts, to the sea, the jungle.

“A lot of areas in the world have just one road all the way through, but here, there are many ways you can choose to travel. We have to make sure it’s safe, while also feeling raw and authentic. And we have to make sure it’s a route that has diversity and, while every series has an arc, every episode also has its own identity.”

For each new series, producers are careful to ensure the challenge comes as a surprise to all contestants. Rani shared that she was so convinced they would be sent to Africa, she started practising Swahili: “You’re clueless until you get to the airport. They take away your wallet, your phone, you can’t contact anyone. Then you’re handed an envelope…”

For some players, going on the show offers a boost to their confidence. For others it’s about spending special time with a loved one. Rani decided to bring her father along for the ride: “We’ve got a similar adventurous spirit.” Nazran didn’t initially realise what he was in for: “Anita asked if I’d be up for an adventure, and I thought, ‘It’s probably a weekend away.’ Then she mentioned six weeks. What! I didn’t realise how tough it would be.”

Jackie Llewellyn told the RTS it was a chance to spend time with her son – who is often away, working on location – but also for both of them to stretch beyond their comfort zone. “We called ourselves Team Tortoise,” she joked, “and we were very slow to start off. But we realised that people were happy to help us, and that we shouldn’t have that fear [of approaching strangers]. We definitely improved as we went along.”

With each pair making spontaneous decisions on which direction to take, the show is full of unpredictable moving parts: the Llewellyns head west from Cancun and stay in Mexico on their way to the first designated pitstop in Guatemala, while Rani and Nazran head south, which means crossing the border into Belize.  This requires the production team to work around the clock back at base.

McCreery explained the logistics: “We have our team on the ground on location, plus a team in London working while we’re asleep, because the race never stops. And for each pair, we have an embedded video director/producer. I get hundreds of WhatsApp messages, explaining what they’re doing, where they are, what decisions they’re making, so that we can head in that direction.”

One of the embedded producers, Lewis Price, explained that travelling with the teams can present a surprisingly wide-ranging brief. “Filming and producing is probably about 20% of the role,” he told the RTS. “And 50% is telling Harleymoon Kemp to look both ways when crossing the road! One of the things I enjoy most about the role is that you really are managing a team, looking out for everyone, while making sure you’re getting all the things you need to produce these scenes.”

Harleymoon Kemp praised the production staff accompanying her and brother Roman. “There’s the partnership you see on screen, but the team is really those two plus the director. There’s no luxury hotel for them while we’re on the bus. They’re sleeping on the floor. They’re taking their hits as much as we are.”

For each pair, there is also a driver, a researcher, a multiskilled agent, someone on security and a fixer who speaks the local language. McCreery stressed: “Every time anyone gets a bus, goes into a hotel or crosses the road, there’s someone out there looking after their safety.”

Yet producers are firm about not intervening in contestants’ decisions or giving clues about which way they should go. Price reflected: “You can’t even show them they’re doing anything wrong. All production directors are different – my preference is to know everything about where they’re headed. And the moment I know they’re making an unfavourable decision, I’ll be able to feel where things are going, and zoom in when they discover they’ve gone the wrong way.”

As ever in reality TV, the journey for the contestants is not just the one visible on the map. Everyone on the panel spoke positively about the transformative effect of taking on such an adventure. Tyler West said of the time on the road with his now-fiancee Rainford: “On a normal day, it’s easy to hide behind work and busy schedules, but when you go to these locations, you’re completely stripped back and are the rawest versions of yourselves.

“I thought I knew Molly – but,  suddenly, when we’re away, I think: ‘Now I really know you.’ It’s so special.”

‘Celebrity Race Across the World: screening, discussion and Q&A’ was an RTS National Event at the Soho Curzon on 27 October, chaired by Scott Bryan. The producer was Sarah Booth/Plank PR.