- [Kira] Coming up next on "Islands Without Cars," our cast and crew take a look back at some of our unique experiences and what makes traveling without cars so memorable.

- Just like that.

- Oh yeah.

- [Kira] So join us, as we offer gratitude to some biblical beasts of burden, take the high road across an active volcano, and zip through a canyon on a highway in the sky.

- Yay.

♪ Gotta walk walk walk ♪ ♪ Through the door ♪ ♪ Gotta walk ♪ (gentle music) - [Kira] Hi, I'm Kira Cook, and it's my great pleasure to be your guide, as we search for islands lost in time, places where cars are restricted, and whose inhabitants wouldn't have it any other way.

So come with me on a journey that you won't forget.

(gentle music) (bright music) In our search for "Islands Without Cars"- - Steady.

- [Kira] We've come away with enormous gratitude for the diverse cultures and rich traditions that have intentionally remained out of step with the modern motorized world.

In this special episode, we want to share some of the stories that illustrate the experience of filming on islands without the dubious benefits of cars.

Well, benefits to a camera crew, at least.

- Sorry, let me start that again.

(laughing) (bright music) - You have to walk or ride a bike.

You don't get to ride in a car.

That is quite the irony because I like to be just like this, in a chair and not walk across the street.

- [Kira] You heard that right, the creator of our show doesn't like to walk, and the ironies don't stop there.

Our host, that's me, has a completely different type of problem.

The real villain of this show is my inner ear.

I have extreme seasickness, and in every episode, if you look closely, I am definitely seasick in every single one of these episodes.

- Kira.

It's better for you now?

- This is much better.

- Without the waves.

- Yeah, otherwise, I gotta swim back.

So we're on the way to Inishmaan, a lovely journey that I can't really see because I'm feeling so ill.

Needed to take a bit of rest.

We're about to take a four-hour catamaran ride to what is referred to as a rock in the middle of the North Sea.

Helgoland there was a, I think, four-hour long, really intense ferry ride.

It was a huge boat, but it was rocking and rocking and rocking for hours on end.

- To go on these trips, knowing that she doesn't enjoy that and has motion sickness, especially on the water.

She's such a good sport.

- I'm seeing blue, but I'm feeling very green.

So, I am going to use the sort of old wives tale to ward against seasickness.

You put a newspaper against your stomach.

So I'm gonna do that.

The Croatian News onto my belly.

- Yeah, the newspaper on the stomach thing, I don't think that worked.

(accordion music) - [Kira] It's a problem, which I am pretty used to by now, because it goes without saying that if your destination is an island, boats are crucial and everywhere.

The interconnecting ferry routes of Sweden's southwestern coastline, for example, provide an easy, car-free way to experience their remote beauty and serve as a constant reminder of the deep-rooted maritime history of this archipelago in the blustery North Sea.

- The difficulty shooting on any of the boats is just the noise.

The engines give off a lot of noise.

If there's people there, there's people talking.

Also the wind.

There's always a lot of wind around.

- You need a hold on the hat.

- I think so.

- Yeah.

- [Kira] Wind and seasickness, not withstanding, sometimes when you get to an island, the only way to see something is to get back on a boat, as we discovered on the English Channel island of Sark, when we wanted to see the mock Gothic-style castle built by twin knighted billionaires, David and Frederick Barclay.

- That building took five years to build with approximately 200 men living on the island, working 24 hours a day.

(upbeat music) - [Kira] On New York's Fire Island, water taxis are as indispensable as cabs in Manhattan.

365 days a year, water taxis transport residents and visitors to and from 17 different communities along the Atlantic coastline.

(alarm blaring) But on one day, the island needs bigger boats.

(crowd cheering) Each 4th of July, hundreds of drag queens and kings arrive by specially chartered boatloads.

This Pride filled celebration is called the Invasion of the Pines.

- Hey, Rose.

- [Kira] One of the most memorable characters was definitely Panzi from Fire Island.

She let us climb aboard her boat full of drag queens and all of their wonderful costumes.

It was front row.

(crowd cheering) - No, we are the British invasion.

Fire Island, the British invasion, God save the queens.

You have with you today, Rolling Stones.

I am doing a very unconvincing Mick Jagger.

- I believed it.

- [Drag Queen] Keith Richards.

That's a little bit- - Obviously.

More solid.

- Yeah.

(both laughing) we have Sir Elton John.

- [Kira] Hello.

- Oh, and of course there is her majesty, the Queen.

(upbeat music) - [Kira] For the big finale, each drag performer gets their moment to shine, as they step off the boat and onto the dock, in a series of unique performances.

(crowd cheering) And now for something completely different.

(Kira speaking French) We climbed back into another boat with Baptiste.

Thank you.

Whose family has lived on France's Isle of Porquerolles for generations.

Ever the consummate host and island lover, Baptiste took us for a tour around the island, 70% of which is a protected national park.

- So now as you can see, there's a lot of rocks, and you have to know the way.

(bright French music) - [Kira] We spotted a handful of remote historic forts that were once used to fend off the pirates of the Mediterranean.

And by following the cannons, we discovered a former surgeon who is now lovingly and painstakingly restoring his own private fort.

(Kira speaking French) (Paul speaking French) (gentle music) On Germany's tiny island of Helgoland in the North Sea residents have a unique boating ritual to escort guests from ship to shore.

- We will see something really special and unique in the world, because we wait for around about 2,000 guests today.

There will be five ships coming.

One ship can go into the harbor, our big harbor.

One ship can go into the small harbor, but then there are three other ships we have to put there.

And so we will go out with our boats, and we take the passengers and bring them here to shore.

- So, I'm getting off the ship.

How's the Helgoland hello?

- Yeah, I can tell you and I can show you- - Great.

- How we say hello to our guests.

- Okay.

- We make something like this, come on.

- Ah.

- [Holger] Yeah, we got it.

- Okay, it's a foxtrot.

- Yeah, it is.

- Okay.

(Kira laughing) - Okay.

- Do you spin?

Spin?

- Oh yeah, sure.

- Yeah, okay.

That's another... That's the American hello.

- (laughing) Yeah, I know that.

(both laughing) Okay.

- The hardest part is when you're going onto these islands without cars and schlepping all of the gear.

When you're doing these small island trips, you have to be prepared for all situations, and that's a lot of gear to carry.

(laughing) - The first thing I do when I arrive on an island is look for a wagon or a cart.

And unfortunately they can be a bit hard to find sometimes.

- Lots of heavy lifting, lots of planning, trying to figure out how to get a big, bulky item from the dock.

- And yet, the best laid plans often benefit from surprise finds in unusual places.

(bright music) I would say the most remote place we've been is a little island called Alicudi, and that was in the Aeolian islands off of Italy.

- We get there, and the first thing I see is a donkey waiting for us for all our bags.

- I put my big cases on the donkeys, but I still carried my own sound equipment with me.

But, yeah, the donkeys were great.

- The donkeys had to carry appliances, a refrigerator, a stove.

- The fact that you have to use mules was very creative and made a lot of sense.

- And they had maybe two donkeys to help take things off of the boat and bring them to the hotel.

But other than that, it had very mountainous terrain.

So you really had to just walk up hundreds of thousands, maybe, of steps to get to all the places where the different people lived, and hardly anybody lived on the island.

I mean there was electricity, but there was nothing else at that hotel.

It was very...

It truly stepping back in time.

(Kira and Aldo speaking Italian) We asked some of the locals what drew them to such a remote island.

(Aldo speaking in Italian) Okay.

(Aldo speaking in Italian) (Kira speaking in Italian) (Aldo speaking in Italian) (Kira speaking in Italian) (Maria speaking in Italian) From the most remote island we've been to to the smallest.

(Scottish music) The tiny Scottish island of Easdale is home to one very big contest.

Each year they host the World Stone Skimming Competition, and I was lucky enough to participate.

(crowd cheering) Okay.

(laughing) It's within the boundaries, that's all I need.

Spoiler alert, I did not win.

(crowd cheering) Thank you, thank you, thank you.

(Scottish music) I feel an extraordinary sense of freedom on a place where there's no cars or traffic or noise pollution, really.

And I really love just taking walks.

(bright music) You can't help but feel as though you're stepping into a different place, which puts you into a different frame of mind, and Scotland on Aran Islands, on Sark, the idea that you can start on one end of the island and get to the other on your feet is such a novelty.

- Since you're walking, you have to go slower.

It's not like the island is passing by outside your window quickly.

You really have time to look at it and feel it and smell it.

At the end of our trip on Hydra, we realized that we missed the monastery at the top of the mountain.

It's a thousand degrees.

In the middle of it I literally did have to just sit down.

I mean, I'm sitting thinking, okay, let's just stay here and wait for a minute.

(bright music) When we finally got back down, the funniest part was all of the Greeks saying, "You're kidding.

"You went up there today?"

So, yeah.

- In Dubrovnik, before we went to the island, we did that on several shows.

We would stop in the city, we did it in Paris, we did in Amsterdam, where we'd give a little sense of the city, and Dubrovnik is a carless walled city, so it really fits with the theme, but it's very hilly, mountainous, and we're with these people walking to their house up eight million stairs.

Melissa and I are way back, struggling to get up these stairs.

- I love going with Gordon because we get to walk at the same pace.

(laughing) (bicycle bell ringing) (bright music) - On our way to the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog we stopped in Amsterdam, a city that's famous for its bicycling culture.

Today, bicycling accounts for more than half of all trips within the city center.

Now that's more than driving, walking, and public transport combined.

(bicycle bell ringing) We met with American expat and author, Pete Jordan, to learn about Amsterdam's process of change from cars to bicycles.

- Foreigners, when they get here, they look at what we have here for cyclists and think that it's always been this way, but it's not the case at all.

This was a very concerted effort to get to where we are now.

- After World War I, a rise in tram prices, combined with an influx of German made bicycles, led to many making the switch from trams to bikes.

And by the 1950s, the automobile boom made the streets crowded and polluted, not to mention dangerous.

- It became clear to some people that this was not working.

That was insanity in this old city center that everybody has a car.

All these squares where you see cafe terraces were giant parking lots.

Sidewalks were filled with cars.

The number of traffic fatalities went through the roof, and mid 1970s there were a number of large bike protests.

Each one was bigger than the next beginning.

(bicycle bells ringing) Beginning in 1980s then the bike lanes were being installed.

Bike racks were being installed.

There's no blueprint on how to do it.

So there was a lot of trial and error, and 35 or so years later, there's still a lot of trial and error.

It's a work in progress.

- Needless to say, in a city with over 60 miles of canals surrounding 90 islands, boats are a romantic and practical form of transportation that rival bicycles in their popularity.

I'm Kira.

- Hi, my name's Mark.

- Nice to meet you.

Thank you so much.

(bright music) Cruising the beautiful and historic neighborhoods by water, it's easy to see why this picturesque city was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

So why did you choose to buy a boat that's electric powered.

- It's not allowed to have the boat with diesel engine.

It's only allowed to drive electric.

- [Kira] Okay, that's why the canals are clean.

- Yes.

- There's no gas being pumped in.

- Right.

- To the water.

That makes sense.

In an effort to keep the canals clean and quiet, Amsterdam's city council is actively involved in legislating change from diesel to electrically powered boats, another way that Amsterdam is leading a global charge towards cleaner, greener energy.

(bright guitar music) - I love to see how people get around these islands without cars.

And sometimes it's with little electric or motorized carts, donkeys, horses.

- [Kira] Very few places are as well preserved and protected from the intrusion of cars than Michigan's scenic and charming Mackinaw Island, which is not to say that people in the late 19th century didn't try.

- Main Street Mackinac Island in 1898 was very much like it is today, loaded with bicycles, carriages, people, and horses.

In the summer of 1898, a gentleman brought a car to Mackinac Island, and this is very early in the history of cars.

He brought it on a boat to the dock downtown, and drove the car up the dock and onto the main street.

And when the horses met their first car, well, it wasn't a happy meeting.

It scared the horses to death.

(Kira laughing) And so there is a ban on horseless carriages that goes back to 1898.

Cars were banned so early that they never had a chance to change the historic layout and ambiance of Mackinac.

We still have narrow, quaint historic streets.

We have no stop signs, no stop lights, no gas stations.

We don't have the sound of cars.

We don't have the smell of cars.

So when you come here, you are coming to one of those unique places that has great history, that is well preserved in a pre-automotive environment.

And that's just wonderful.

- [Kira] To get the sights, smells, and feel of living in a pre-automotive environment, I decided to take the reins in my own hands.

(horse hooves clomping) How do I drive a carriage?

- All right, so to get our horses started, we're gonna give 'em a little bit of tension in the mouth.

Line in each hand.

- Okay.

- We're gonna kiss at 'em, click at 'em, let 'em know you're ready.

(Kira tongue clicking) Just like that.

- Oh, yeah.

- Look at that.

- Look at that.

- Perfect.

- [Joseph] Now you wanna pull left, you pull always towards your body.

- [Kira] Towards my body.

- [Joseph] And then gather up your lines.

- Then gather up the lines.

- So you can one hand 'em.

Perfect, just like that.

- Great.

- You're a pro already.

- Yeah?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Do you hear that out there?

I'm a pro already.

Oops, already messed it up.

- (laughing) No, you're good.

You're driving really well.

So we're extended out, we're in control.

Everything we do is towards our stomach.

- Towards our stomach.

- Yep.

- [Kira] To the left.

But you said when you pull too hard they say, no, I don't like that, right?

- [Joseph] If you pull too hard, yeah, they'll just stop on you a lotta times.

- [Kira] Okay.

- [Joseph] You look comfortable right now.

- [Kira] I'm very comfortable.

- That's awesome.

- And my abs are burning.

- Yeah.

- I'm basically doing a sitting sit up.

- You're on like your thousandth rep right now.

- Yeah, that's right.

Leaving Mackinac Island with a rock solid six pack.

(Joseph laughing) - [Kira] This is fun.

- [Joseph] Absolutely.

You could do this all day.

- [Kira] I really could do this all day.

- You could be a tour driver.

- Thank you.

- Absolutely.

- [Kira] I feel like Anne of Green Gables.

(Joseph laughing) This whole island makes you feel like her.

(gentle music) - For many years my family went to Mackinac Island, and I thought, hmm, this might be interesting to show this place, which is unique.

- She said, exactly, "Do you think there's more islands "around the world without cars?"

And I said, "I will find them."

(Italian music) - When it comes to car-free islands, the Venetian Lagoon is arguably the most famous, (bells tolling) with its 118 islands separated by 171 canals and linked by over 400 bridges.

Traditionally known as the most serene republic of Venice, this city in northeastern Italy is actually pretty busy.

(Italian music) In peak seasons, tens of thousands of tourists a day are transported by water, among this uniquely beautiful architectural and engineering achievement, where canals function as liquid roads.

Here, the S-shaped Grand Canal operates as Main Street while motorized water buses known as (speaking Italian) share the road along with over 300 of the instantly recognizable flat-bottomed boats known as gondolas.

(Italian music) So, tell me about this place.

- Oh, this is a very special place here in Venice.

It's called (speaking Italian), where gondolas are made and fixed.

Can you see in the lower part, you can see that there are six teeth.

Each tooth stands for one area of Venice.

- So these boats are made for Venice, obviously, but also somewhere else.

- Yeah, exactly.

For The Venetian in Las Vegas.

- Okay, so there actually is something true and real about Las Vegas.

- Yeah, absolutely.

After all.

Okay.

- Absolutely.

- Viva Las Venice.

(Italian music) (Kira speaking Italian) I couldn't resist a ride along the canals of the real Venice in this boat that has become an international symbol for romance.

(Italian music) That's my husband, FYI.

And this truly is the most romantic way to escape the crowds, take in the sites along the Grand Canal, and soak up the old world charm of this incomparable city.

(Italian music) (Kira yelling) From Anne of green Gables one minute to Superwoman the next.

Traveling along a cable highway in the sky on California's Santa Catalina Island will forever remain lodged in the pleasure center of my brain.

(whimsical musical) - Yay.

(whimsical musical) - The ziplining segment, I mean, it was the only time we've ever done ziplining on the show, and it was so unique.

- Okay.

- Big, big zip off.

- Okay.

- Have fun.

- [Kira] Bye.

- [Wayne] We got some really great GoPro footage of Kira flying high above the trees, and it was a lot of fun to put that together.

- If I could zipline anywhere all day, I'd zipline hither and nither.

It's probably my favorite way of getting somewhere, yeah.

It's fast, it's fun.

And it requires no motor.

It's delightful.

You get to fly through the trees, sign me up.

(whimsical musical) The fun on Catalina didn't start there.

Instead of taking a ferry to the island, we opted for a more thrilling entrance in a helicopter.

(whimsical musical) But Catalina wasn't the only time we experienced the thrilling terrors of helicopter transport.

The first time was when we flew high above Italy's Aeolian islands.

The really amazing scenic aspect of that was to take a helicopter around an erupting volcanic island.

And that was stunning.

- Our producer wanted us to shoot a volcano with the door open.

The wind was actually blowing my feet off the skit.

I was hangin' off the helicopter off the side.

I got so excited to see lava popping up, that at one point I actually leaned forward.

- I'm thinking, oh, what a great shot.

Oh my god, he might die.

Oh my god, great shot, but he might die.

Talk about mixed emotions.

- Everything looked so beautiful, I forgot that I was supposed to be scared.

I was so excited.

(laughing) (Italian music) - I'm in an interesting spot because I'm not on location.

I'm not there as part of the shoot.

So all I get to see is the resulting footage of it.

And when the camera people, whether it's hanging out of a helicopter or sitting backwards, trying to get a shot of Kira riding a bicycle, or hangin' off of a horse and buggy, trying to get the low-angle shot of the wagon wheel moving, but if a camera person's gonna risk their life, I'll probably end up using the shot.

(upbeat music) - I think the theme through all of the cultures of all the islands we visited is one of a connection to their past, a reverence for how things used to be done.

I think in modern city life, there's a bit of holier than thou aspect to the past, and we've learned more and now we know what to do better.

And I think these islands have all realized, actually, no, we are ruining our planet, and that's not the way things should be done.

- Merci.

- Merci.

Then we can grow our own food, and we can share it with the people that come to us and welcome them with open arms, but concentrate on our small community.

Mmmm.

(Kira speaking Italian) - You come to these places, they tend to be relaxed.

They tend to be a little slow.

In many of them, it's not like you gotta see all the famous spots.

You go and you just sorta hang out and have this incredible meal or something.

- I like people in life.

To me, the most important thing is people.

In Croatia I've stayed in touch with Lorenzo who was a diver.

- Comfortable?

- No.

(Lorenzo laughing) - [Melissa] I've stayed in touch with Federica, who was our adorable guide in Panarea.

Our guide in Burano, Marta, was fantastic.

And then she took us afterwards to her family's home, and they were so gracious.

I still stay in touch with Marta.

(speaking Italian) I had the best time, and a lot of it, in fact, most of it has to do with we have a tremendous crew.

We are close and we are a family.

It's great.

- [Kira] While traveling and working with people who feel like family... - [Speaker] Hello.

- [Kira] We have been able to attract people on every island who have helped us slow down.

- Lovely.

- Lovely, thank you.

- Yeah.

- Look closely.

Mmm.

Listen carefully.

And connect with the islands they conserve so lovingly.

(gentle music) For more information about our series, visit our website at islandswithoutcars.com.

(water splashing) (bright music) (bright music)