He’s traveled the world, so what’s this renowned PBS reporter doing in South MS?

He’s found adventures in places like Kauai and Venice, traveled with kings and presidents and now Peter Greenberg is searching for “Hidden Coastal Mississippi” for his PBS audience.

Greenberg has several travel shows and eight camera crews around the world — in Spain, Ireland, Turkey, Croatia, Dubai, New York and California — “And right now a crew in Mississippi,” he said Monday on his first day of production in South Mississippi.

He’d already been out on the beach and played music. He has more time on the beach planned, more music, fishing and other adventures all across the Coast.

“But we’re doing it with great storytellers. People who live what they do and love what they do,” he said.

Food is also part of his “Hidden Gems” shows, but not the typical food segments.

“I want to be in the kitchen. I want to be out in the farm. I want to be out in the shrimp boat. I want to see how they do it,” he said. “I don’t want to just sit in the restaurant and have somebody serve it to me.”

The show featuring Coastal Mississippi will air on the Public Broadcasting Station sometime next year, introducing viewers across the country to what awaits on the Coast.

Traveling the world

It would be hard to find a more qualified person to find hidden places in South Mississippi or anywhere else in the world.

“There are 196 countries in the world. I’ve been lucky to have gone to 152,” Greenberg said.

That means he’s got 44 more to go, and he admits he’ll likely not get to some of the small island nations. Most Americans have never been to another country, he said, and only 37% have passports. He brings the sights and sounds of his adventures to them through his travel shows.

“So I wake up every day with my favorite four letter word — next,” he said.

For his travel show “Royal Tour,” which he’s done for 22 years, he’s taken presidents, kings and prime ministers on his adventures.

“I get them to give me eight days of their schedule devoted only to me,” he said. For those eight days, the head of state becomes his travel guide to their country.

“So imagine two people on a road trip, one of them just happens to run the country. And whatever happens happens,” he said. He’s taken the “Royal Tour” of Israel, New Zealand, Jamaica, Jordan, Peru, Poland and many other countries.

Why South Mississippi?

“We got to Coastal Mississippi a couple of ways,” Greenberg said. He was born and raised in Manhattan, New York, and in 1972 became the Newsweek magazine correspondent, based in Houston and covering Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi in his VW bus.

“Not only were the best stories here, the best people were here,” he said. “Forgetting all the stereotypes, I had the best time. And what I learned over the years is that so many people in the media had no idea about this part of the world. Either they didn’t have an idea or they didn’t want to know or both.

“And so as we developed this series that we do for PBS, I really wanted to focus not just on the usual suspects, but on places that didn’t get a lot of a lot of publicity, or a lot of understanding.”

The best vacations

An advance crew scouted places in South Mississippi to get a diverse mix of history, culture, food and music to include in the show. Greenberg said on his first day he already added another place to include in the show after he learned about it from someone he was interviewing.

When people tell you about the best travel experience they’ve ever had, it’s when the unexpected happens to your plans, he said.

The Covid pandemic rang a big bell in people. Instead of a car or new jewelry or electronics, they wanted to spend their money on travel.

“It was a sort of a last supper mentality of travel,” he said. “And that’s what we’ve seen for the last two and a half years. And so my audience always wants me to tell them something they didn’t know.” And Mississippi is something they don’t know,” he said.