In 2009, he took part in the documentary, Stephen Tompkinson's Great African Balloon Adventure, a three-part series inspired by Jules Verne's first novel Five Weeks in a Balloon. It followed Tompkinson and his guide, hot air ballooning expert Robin Batchelor, as they travelled 6,108 miles in six weeks from coast to coast, above and on the ground in Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia. The series aired on ITV in the UK in June 2009 and was later distributed by American Public Television in the U.S. The African balloon series was well received, and ITV commissioned a three-part follow-up series that aired on ITV1 in 2010, titled Stephen Tompkinson's Australian Balloon Adventure.