Kelly Brook and Jeremy Parisi: Our next adventure after Celebrity Race Across the World

• Married couple Kelly Brook and Jeremy Parisi, who tied the knot in 2022, are competing in the latest series of Celebrity Race Across the World on BBC One

• They're taking part in the 12,500 km race of a lifetime from Belém, Northern Brazil — the gateway to the Amazon — across the length of South America, to reach the finish line in Southern Chile

• In their own words, the couple shared all the details of their next adventure — and behind the scenes of their time on the BBC show — with Yahoo.

Will Celebrity Race Across the World change how we travel?

Maybe we can travel in a more relaxed way and enjoy everything we get to see.

But no, we don't really travel on a budget. We don't ever want to travel like that again. Can't see us leaving our phones at home and not having any money and (Jeremy) skipping meals on holiday.

Jeremy promised, "take my credit card", so we're going to go back to Brazil next year.

A mini road trip, perhaps back to the first checkpoint — the beach town of Canoa Quebrada — because it was quite magical and nice. We would like to go back to Rio and São Paulo. We saw a lot of Brazil on Celebrity Race Across the World via bus terminals and buses.

There's so much to see in Brazil and it's so beautiful but because you're racing there's not a lot of time to get to these places. You're literally there for such short periods of time. So to go back and have the luxury of your phone, your credit card, and time — everything!

We're gonna 'Saunter Across the World' now.

If the plane is late for one hour, it's fine. We can deal with this. Our first holiday after Race, we booked Puglia - and this was mad, so crazy. We just got the times wrong of the flight. It looked like we missed the flight and we ran to the gate. All we could think was: can you believe we made it all across South America and now we can't even get to Italy?

It was such a crazy experience and then we got there, they said: "Oh the plane is delayed." We were so chilled about it. In the past, that would have been a disaster. Once your bus breaks down and you're on the side of the road for 12 hours, it's really easy in comparison to what we've been through. One hour to wait was not a big deal and we didn't moan at all. We sat down, could go buy a coffee and we could look at our phones.

You forget about the cameras on Celebrity Race Across the World. The first few days, you see the team around you but after that, you do your life like they are not here anymore. We went on a big journey and we definitely got closer. You saw that with Stephen and Viv, the husband and wife couple on the previous series of Race Across the World. You end up becoming a team. (You don't have a choice!) Now we're not just a couple with intimate moments, all of a sudden you've got to be strategic and work together. You need to speak tactics.

It wasn't like we were just getting to know each other on the road — that would have been a nightmare. Some of the other couples, they might be family but have you been on holiday together? Or spent time together recently? Do you actually know each other? Just because you're cousins (Kola Bokinni and Mary-Ellen) or father and son (Jeff and Freddy Brazier). With Scott Mills and Sam Vaughan — and us — we are chosen family. So we had that advantage.

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Watching it now, we are proud of ourselves. We did it and we made it through. Plus, we're proud we were honest about who we were. Celebrity Race Across the World shows who we are, warts and all, bickering and then getting on and not letting it get in the way of the end result. That's how we navigate life. You have your disagreements but ultimately you're in it together.

We didn't want to portray ourselves as this ideal couple that are always in love and always get on. We bicker. We disagree and it's just healthy. It's healthy to say you are annoyed. It's normal, it's relatable. It would have been hard for us to put on an act. We're not there to make headlines. It's how we are, we always banter with each other. We always take the mickey out of each other. We're very different personalities and very different people.

Celebrity Race Across the World was challenging for us, but not in terms of our relationship because we have been together for ten years. But it doesn't mean it was easy. It was a challenge. Jeremy was fully responsible for the budgeting of the race. That was tough. You even have to have money to go to the toilet in the bus station in Brazil. It was hard to manage the money every day because you can't manage the price of the bus. You're facing it in real time. There's no forward planning. You can't organise.

Where we had tension was over food because we would go into a bar or a restaurant and one of us (Kelly) would want a refreshing ice cream or a drink or a plate of something. The other one of us (Jeremy, who as a judo fighter had weigh ins as part of training) would sit there with nothing. At times, it was awful. But in Brazil, it was also 37 degrees, too hot to eat at times, and we were drinking a lot of water. Both of us lost a few kilos.

Other couples got sick on Celebrity Race Across the World. We took a lot of vitamins and probiotics and activated charcoal, things like that. We never got sick and we had everything packed. Pyjamas, you never know whether you're gonna be sleeping in other people's beds. Mosquito repellent. We got rid of stuff as we were going too. It was a lot to carry around so you take the bare minimum.

You'll see in the last episode, we get ourselves into a bit of trouble. The kindness of strangers in the final episode blew us away. All people are kind. People in Brazil are gentle. We were hosted by some incredible families and we met some amazing people.

But we were let down by some people as well. The first two weeks, we wondered where is all this kindness from strangers? People said they would pick us up and they wouldn't show up but then when people do go out of their way!

Watch the Celebrity Race Across the World trailer below

After Celebrity Race Across the World, we appreciate life every day. We know we don't need a lot of money to live and be happy and being kind is important because so many people were kind to us in exchange of nothing. One time we asked a girl in the street about taking the bus somewhere and she said, "I will drive you there." There's so much that we do that isn't shown on Celebrity Race Across the World.

We had a lot of luck, didn't we? Some of the other couples say they were lucky but we really had a lot of luck. We met a lot of nice people. It was the most amazing experience.

Kelly Brook and Jeremy Parisi told their story to Lily Waddell.

Celebrity Race Across The World airs on BBC One at 9pm on Wednesday.