A COUPLE are fast becoming the stars of a new travel programme.

Travel Guides, a new ITV series, covers five ‘ordinary’ families reviewing some of the world’s most popular destinations.

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The first episode aired on Monday and was watched by 2.8 million people, with Rossendale painter and decorator Pete Wharton and his wife Linda revealing themselves to be secret Thai experts, having travelled to the country 26 times before.

Linda runs the Waterfoot Social Club in Ashworth Street with sister Alison Flemming and her husband Jim while Pete’s brother Andy played for Burnley in the late 1970s/early 1980s and they are both Clarets mad.

Indeed Bacup lad Andy was renowned for having BFC tattooed on his knuckles in his playing days, while Pete only got his Burnley FC inking last year at the age of 61.

Next week the show, which is narrated by Johnny Vegas, heads to Dubai where the Whartons find both the hotels and their prices “out of this world”.

Linda, 57, said: “The whole experience was something we’ll never forget, from a shack on Koh Samui to a five-star hotel.

“Pete had never even been to the Lake District before but he used to go to Thailand before I was with him – say no more.

“But we go to Thailand together every year, we have been going for 10 years; the people are lovely.

“I have never been in a hotel like the one in Dubai – by the pools you had a private waitress who came over with dry fluffy towels and iced water.

On August 17, the families are sent on a week at an all-inclusive resort three-star in the lively resort of Playa de las Americas in Tenerife – and the East Lancashire residents struggle to understand “why anyone would want to leave the hotel when there’s free beer on tap”.

The final episode sees everyone head to the Lake District in a static caravan.