So are you the kind of genre fan who wishes more reality TV catered to your needs? Who longs for life after Ghost Hunters? Then if you’re not aware of Sci-Fi Channel’s Destination Truth, you probably should be. On this show – airing Wednesday nights at 10 PM eastern on the Sci Fi Channel – host Josh Gates, “international explorer” (and presumably man of action) takes viewers around the globe as he investigates unexplained phenomena and creatures from all manner of folklore and legend. This week’s episode features a mythical creature called an Aswang which haunts a forest in the Philippines, and next week we’ll be treated to Icelandic Elves. Yes, you read that correctly -- Icelandic Elves. Here’s hoping they’re all as feisty as Bjork. I mean Bjork’s technically more of a pixie than an elf, but a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat, eh?

Anyway, we recently joined a group of other journos in speaking with Gates about the long strange trips he’s taken…  

Was there any kind of beast or creature that scared you as a kid that you’d like to go out and try to disprove now?

I’m not sure there was anything specific as a kid that gave me nightmares.  But I think what we really do on the show in terms of proving and disproving things…it’s really for that me that I’ve just had a love for these exotic, faraway lands and stories, and a lot of these stories about creatures and stuff really come from off the map. So for me…I’ve always had an interest in going to those places. And now for me really being able to go and do that, to go and get my hands dirty by investigating the stories, is really the most satisfying part of it all.

Are you ever surprised by the kinds of stories or myths or beasts, as unbelievable as they may be, that people really actually believe to exist?

Yeah for sure.  Obviously a lot of things that we search for on the show are things that require you to stretch your imagination to believe in.  But I think when you go to the places where the stories are taking place you adjust your context and see the cultures that these stories are coming out of, sometimes they take on a really different shade.  We did a few episodes in Australia this year. One of the creatures we look for in the northern territories of Australia, which as you know is the aboriginal territory of the outback, is kind of this fantastical dinosaur-like creature.  But once you get out there and you put it in the context of the aboriginal belief system, it takes on this whole different coloring.  It’s a really important part of their culture.  So I think sometimes going to the place makes the myths a lot less fantastic and a lot more grounded.

Are there any of these myths that you’re too afraid to investigate, whether it be the Mothman or something that has these really evil connotations to it?

No. It’s interesting—the stuff that tends to spook the crew out the most are the things that involve being cursed or having bad luck befall you.  For some reason, everyone in the crew is really much less apt to dig in on the stories that can involve them being cursed.  But for me, I think the only stuff that holds up fact is that there are some really great stories in the world that take place in locations that are little bit tricky to travel to politically.  So we try to go to places that are not safe, but there are a few places in the world that are not stable enough for Sci-Fi Channel to sign off on going to.

Do you think there’s a place for mythology in this day and age with TV cameras going everywhere and information being so readily available?

I certainly think there should be a place for it.  I think that there’s no denying that the kind of myths and legends that we focus on in Destination Truth are in some ways evaporating in some parts of the world as we move into a culture that is much more atheistic, in terms of belief in legends and creatures that have powers and stuff like that.  But I think there’s a place for them.  I think a lot of these stories are tall stories and are designed to teach the people living in those places lessons.  You get into the culture and you talk to the people and you realize that they have a role – an instructional role in the culture.  And often these stories are told generationally and passed down to children as a way of teaching them to interact, specifically in their environment. Y’know – what is dangerous, what is safe, what is respectful and what is disrespectful to the natural world.  So a lot of these creatures are in some way protectors of the natural world.  So I definitely think in this day and age that there is a place for stories like that.  Certainly the Yeti, which we touched on last year, and the Mopanwari in Brazil – these are creatures that if you disrespect the land, if you don’t have a healthy respect for the natural world around you, these are things that will come and get you, things that can hurt you.  I think there’s a real place, a real value for those kinds of stories.  Whether or not they will endure into the future is something we don’t know and we’re trying to preserve by telling these stories to an audience that has maybe never heard some of them before.

What’s the most important or interesting thing you’ve learned from interacting with one of these local tribes or cultures?

For me I think that at the core of Destination Truth we sort of hope that even though this is a show where we strap on night vision goggles and sort of go out and try to find these things, we sort of hope at the end of the day that it’s a show that inspires people to become explorers themselves in some way, to go out and learn something more about other cultures.  For me the most important part is even the most fantastic sounding of stories is important within the context of the culture that it comes from to some people.  So I think that we hope that the most valuable thing people can learn from it is not to dismiss these stories as out of hand, and to really be open minded and to go to different parts of the world and meet people who have totally different belief systems.  And be open-minded about hearing those belief systems and digging in and experiencing them.

Is there anywhere stateside that you’d like to go?  Are there any local myths or monsters that you’d like to investigate?

There’s certainly no shortage of stories or myths that are in the Destination Truth wheelhouse in the United States, from Bigfoot to Mothman – there’s the skunk ape, this creature in Florida.  There’s plenty of stories that date back, obviously not with the kind of history that they date back in other areas of the world, but certainly there’s a rich tapestry of stories here that we’d like to look into.  We’ve certainly tossed around the idea of doing a domestic season of the show and I would just say stay tuned.  Y’know, that’s definitely something we’re hoping to get to – um, but you know one of the real characters of Destination Truth is the locations.  I think that we find such a value in bringing exotic places and different cultures to viewers that we’ve spent a good share of our time working on that but – certainly something we’re thinking about.

In terms of the new season what was your favorite location or place that you visited?

Well I got to go to a few places this year that – any time I go somewhere I’ve never been before it’s exciting for me – this time I went to Indonesia which was a place that has certainly been on my radar for a long time and it was a real thrill for me because it was very different than I’d pictured it.  I think I had Indonesia wrong in my head as it were, and it was a really interesting, fascinating country and a really warm, wonderful people.  That was a real thrill.  And we got to touch down in Iceland this year, which is a place that I’d never been to before, and also a really wonderful country with a really fascinating history.  For me those were highlight places.

In the various places that you visit do you find the locals more willing or more reluctant to participate with you and your crew?

I would say that ninety-five percent of the time the local population is extremely welcoming to us – as a television crew.  As individuals almost everywhere that we go people are welcoming.  That’s one of the real things that we’ve all learned in producing the show – that the global hospitality is alive and well.  People in every country have been very, very warm to us.  I think there are some places that being a television crew can be complicated.  We did a few shows in West Africa this year, in Namibia, and politically that country has a lot of limitations on free speech and on journalists, and so there are a lot of loaded elements about traveling around with a camera in an environment like that.  But in terms of the general population I’ve been consistently impressed season after season by how terrific people are everywhere we go.

How long do you think Destination Truth will go on?  Would you like to stay with show if it does for many more years?  What do you see yourself doing in the future?

I think for me it’s about travel and it’s about being able to bring stories from different parts of the world here to the people in the U.S.  So if I can keep doing that as part of Destination Truth than I’m excited to do it.  The time that I’ll know when to step aside in travel television is when there’s no story left to tell but that certainly is not going to happen anytime soon.

Are there any shows, fiction or non-fiction, that you enjoy watching?

I watch a lot of travel television.  We do a lot of flights for Destination Truth so I try to load my laptop up with different shows.  I watched a lot of Anthony Bourdain this year, who’s on Travel Channel, and certainly try to keep pace with a lot of the travel television that’s on and see a lot of the other stories that people are telling and the different ways that people are telling them.  I think one of the interesting things about being a host in the travel television world is that the landscape is populated with many different types of storytellers and so it always neat for me to kind of see how these different hosts approach similar topics.  We’re all kind of out in very different places trying to make that experience interesting to those viewers here in the U.S.  I definitely try to keep pace with a lot of the travel TV that’s happening.  In terms of other stuff, not to shill for Sci-Fi, but I’m a big Battlestar Galactica fan.  And I watch Lost and I watch – I have my shameful secrets – I watch American Idol.  I watch Flipping Out with Jeff Lewis.  Those are like my dirty little secrets.  I try to watch as much travel TV as I can.

Is there any creature that you’ve held off on tackling so far?  For example, I know you’ve yet to do a show devoted to the Loch Ness Monster…

I think that we have in general held off on anything that we feel has been really explored in mainstream travel television.  So in general we’ve held off on Western Europe.  I think that there is a real feeling both at the network level and creatively within ourselves that we want to bring viewers to places that are – y’know, the phrase that we use the most is “off the grid.”  So we feel like if we can’t bring something new to a story that it’s probably best to not approach it.  I think with something like Loch Ness – it’s hard to bring a lot of new information to that story.  I think everyone’s aware of the story and certainly Destination Truth is a scrappy show.  Our show is really about meeting eye witnesses, hearing their stories, and then getting out first hand and trying to set up a credible investigation. And when you’re talking about lake monsters in particular, or aquatic animals I should say, you need an enormous amount of technology.  We kind of like to be a show that’s kind of high-tech by also eyes and ears.  In general we try to limit the amount of underwater stuff that we do.  I think we did some water stuff this season but we try to do it in a place that’s more accessible and allows us to interact with the local culture.  That’s one of the reasons that we’ve kind of not tackled the U.S. yet.  We did a Bigfoot story in Malaysia last year because we felt that it really had a different kind of angle to it.  People here weren’t really aware that that was a big story in Malaysia.  I think if we went to the Pacific Northwest here in the U.S. and tackled Bigfoot we’d really need to spend time figuring out how to make that our own.  I think that’s the only thing we’ve really held back on.  We just want the viewers to constantly be seeing stuff that they haven’t seen before.  I think that’s really our mantra more than anything else – to just keep the show in destinations that people are going to really be excited about and are new to them.  There’s no specific animal we’ve held back on for other reasons.

What is the worst food that you’ve had out on the road?  When have you been most afraid out in the field?

Ummm… worst food is easy and it was this season.  The moment we started doing Destination Truth I always knew I was gonna have to eat this thing.  I knew eventually we would get to the Philippines, and I knew eventually have to try this thing.  I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it.  It’s a delicacy in the Philippines, it’s thought to be an aphrodisiac, and what it is is it’s an overdeveloped egg.  They take this egg – it’s a chicken egg (I think they also do it with duck but the one I had was a chicken) – and they let it overdevelop and then they cook it very briefly.  It’s mostly raw.  Then they open the top of it and inside of it is a partially formed chicken.  There’s bones and there’s a head and wings and feathers and then there’s egg and sort of unformed chicken.  Then they drink and chew it up and swallow it.  I’ve heard of it from people, and its sort of one of those legendary disgusting foods.  We tried to eat that on the show this season.  It’s unbelievable.  There’s no reason to eat that ever.  [Laughs.]  So that’s definitely my number one food.  And

In terms of kind of in the moment – y’know that’s the thing we always talk about with Destination Truth – what’s gonna happen if we find one of these things?  It’s not like I’m out there with a rhino gun.  This year we had a lot of very close calls in the field, more than we’ve had in any other season, with wildlife that we know is there, animals that are in these places that we know exist.  We had a very close call this year with a couple of snakes.  We were in a lot of jungles this year in Indonesia that had tiger populations, had leopard populations.  Occasionally we will see something in the dark, in the jungle.  You see a pair of eyes caught in our cameras or in our thermal imagers and you immediately have to do kind of an assessment that – whether this is the creature we’re looking for or not – there’s certainly no shortage of dangerous animals out here.  I think we’ve all kind of felt a real degree of danger coming up against wildlife on the show, and I think we’ve been really fortunate to not have any actual incidents up to this point.

What’s your biggest fear?

It’s such a crazy thing to say… I actually can’t stand flying in airplanes.  And we did thirty-two flights this year on Destination Truth.  Y’know if you sat next to me on a plane you wouldn’t probably notice it.  I’m not a white-knuckle flier.  But I find aviation really fascinating and also kind of profoundly uncomfortable.  I think it’s kind of a control thing.