After Python ended, Palin collaborated with Python writing partner Terry Jones on the television comedy series Ripping Yarns and the play Secrets. He also appeared in All You Need Is Cash as the lawyer and press agent for The Rutles.
In 1982, Palin wrote and starred in his first solo project after Python, The Missionary. In it, he plays the Reverend Charles Fortesque who is recalled back from Africa to England to aid prostitutes. This also starred Maggie Smith.
He frequently appeared in Terry Gilliam's films, such as Time Bandits, Jabberwocky, and Brazil. His biggest international role in a movie besides Python was Ken Pile in A Fish Called Wanda. The movie was such a success that John Cleese reunited the main cast of A Fish Called Wanda to make Fierce Creatures. As Bugsy Malone, Michael once commented that Cleese had thought it amusing to give him a character that wouldn't shut up, when his character in A Fish Called Wanda hardly talked at all. Five days after, Michael went on another travel journey and returned a year later, only to find that the end of Fierce Creatures had been unsatisfactory and that the ending had to be reshot.
Although this role in Fierce Creatures was his official last big role on screen, Palin had a small part in Wind in the Willows, or Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, a film directed and starring Pythonite Terry Jones. Palin also appeared with John Cleese in his documentary, The Human Face.
He assisted Transport 2000 and others with campaigns on transport policy issues, particularly those relating to urban areas, and has now become president of Transport 2000.
Palin has also appeared as a "straight" actor in serious drama. In 1991 Palin worked as producer and actor in the film American Friends based upon a real event in the life of his great grandfather, a fellow at St John's College, Oxford. In that same year he also played the part of a headmaster in Alan Bleasdale's Channel 4 drama series G.B.H..
Palin's first travel documentary was part of the 1980 BBC Television series Great Railway Journeys of the World, in which humourously reminiscing about his childhood hobby of train spotting, he travelled throughout the UK by train, from London to Kyle of Lochalsh, via Manchester, York, Edinburgh and Inverness. At the Kyle of Lochalsh, Palin bought the station's long metal platform sign and is seen lugging it back to London with him. A second journey for the same series of Palin's, in 1994, went through Ireland titled Derry to Kerry. More recently, he has presented several series of travel programmes on television:
- Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days (1989), travelling as closely as possible the path described in the famous Jules Verne story of the same name without using aircraft.
- Pole to Pole (1992), travelling from the North Pole to the South Pole, following as closely as possible the 30 degree line of longitude, over as much land as possible, i.e., through Europe and Africa.
- Irish Railway Journey: Derry to Kerry 1994-- It is a quest for family roots, an attempt to trace his great grandmother – Brita Gallagher – who set sail from Ireland 150 years ago during the potato famine, bound for a new life in Burlington, New Jersey, USA. It is a trip along the Palin family line.
- Full Circle with Michael Palin (1997), in which he circumnavigated the lands around the Pacific Ocean counter-clockwise. A journey of 80,000 kilometres starting on Little Diomede Island in the Bering Straitand taking him through Asia, Oceania and the Americas.
- Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure (1999), retracing the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway through the United States, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.
- Sahara (2002), in which he trekked through the world's largest desert.
- Himalaya (2004), in which he travels through the Himalayas
Palin's travel programmes are responsible for a phenomenon termed the "Palin effect", in which areas of the world visited by Michael Palin suddenly become popular tourist attractions — for example, the significant increase in the number of British tourists interested in holidaying in the Sahara region in 2003.
In 2005, he presented Michael Palin and the Mystery of Hammershoi, about the Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi, whose work he collects.
All his travel books can be read at no charge, complete and unabridged, on his website.
