Tags: Discovery Channel | Ian Wright | travel

For his latest TV series, intrepid world traveller and host Ian Wright explored six cities in the States. In a frank discussion with Think, he revealed why he truly liked the country...

What I love about Americans are their optimism. Someone says, "I'm going to start a peanut factory. Yes, let's do it! Yes, yes, yes." Whereas in England you'd be so down on it, "That's rubbish. I don't know why you'd bother."

But the worst side is obviously, they're bloody insular. They're a bit arrogant and they're not aware that the rest of the world exists. They're going to be very aware in the next 10 years because its economically sliding down and China is going to give them a good kick in the ass.

New Orleans is my favorite city in the U.S. They're just building up straight after the disaster, two years on. That's extraordinary in itself. The way Katrina was handled was like a developing country,

There's such a nice mix there. The food is the best food in America. Also, you've got the French Quarter and all that. Then you've got the dancing and I just think it's an amazing place.

Spectagraphing ghosts in New Orleans with Bloody Mary, a voodoo queen, was the wackiest thing I did in the U.S.

There was a bit of an anti-Bush, anti-war vibe there to be honest, which I was very surprised at.

I thought that there would be the cliché American gung-ho "Let's go and kick some ass because we need blood for 9/1l. " People were openly saying that Bush is a f*cking asshole and I was very happy about that.

I adore New York and I love Chicago, They've got a big area in the front, which literally I'd say, is handed over to the people. The real estate and the money must be billions and people would die to build a nasty concrete office block there, because it's in the center of town, but no, they're keeping it so people can use it, which is a rare thing these days.

Sifting on the back of an alligator in Miami was quite uncomfortable.

Cities are getting homogenized now. Around the world, in 40 years time, you'll be going to cities and you won't even know that you've moved from Moscow to London or wherever because they're all getting to be the some.

Patience is one thing one must learn when travelling.

I'm doing a series now called Ian Wright, Out of Bounds. I'm cheaply going to all the places that I've always wanted to go. So I'm going to Siberia.

I'm probably going to go to Vietnam, maybe Sri Lanka, maybe go to Antarctica, Syria, Rome, Venezuela, I like the isolation of places like Mongolia, like Greenland, you know they're like deserts really.

The people that I love are the people around the corner from you who are bringing up kids on their own, a single parent family on no money. That's a hero. That's someone we should celebrate and someone we should have admiration for.

Why the f*ck would anybody want to meet Paris Hilton? Why would you want to even associate with folks like that? If that's people's idea of interest, then we're screwed really.

I was in a cab in Saskatchewan, Canada and the driver was telling me a story. He was brought up by an Inuit family and he was bullied at school by this huge Inuit guy. And he went back there 10 years ago, and he was in the bar and the guy was still there.

He was still trying to bully him and give him grief. And the guy just got bored and said "Me and you outside. You choose your weapon and we're going to go. "

So they just got shotguns out from behind the bar, at night, and bolstered themselves under different sort of street lamps. And the Inuit guy said, "Actually, no, this is too much" and went back into the bar. That shows you how wild these places are. You know, we live in our comfort zone.

Like I tell everyone, it's better than working for a living. You're going around the world doing the most incredible and amazing things.

America the Wright Way can be seen on Discovery Travel & Living.