Not surprisingly, Josh Gates is often described as Indiana Jones-esque due to his archeology degree from Tufts University and his hosting of television shows such as “Legendary Locations” and “Expedition Unknown.” Now it can be said that Gates literally followed in the footsteps of the famous film archaeologist hero.

In the two-part season premiere of “Expedition Unknown,” debuting on Discovery Channel on October 9 at 9 p.m., Gates travels to the ancient city of Petra. The location should be familiar to fans of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” because Jones (Harrison Ford) and his father (Sean Connery) went to Petra to find the Holy Grail.

Gates isn’t specifically looking for a drinking vessel, but the special will focus on his efforts to discover how a mysterious desert civilization created one of the Seven Wonders of the World. With unprecedented permission to dig for the iconic Treasury building, he searches for clues about the enigmatic Nabataean kingdom and helps rewrite history books with the discovery of an ancient grave.

“Whether people think they know Petra or not, they do, because it will forever be remembered as the home of the Holy Grail,” says Gates.

This is the twelfth season of the series that has taken Gates around the world. In the first episode of “Expedition Unknown,” Gates traveled to Papua New Guinea to find evidence of what happened to Amelia Earhart. Since then he has been to Romania, South Africa, the Arabian Sea and the Bermuda Triangle, to name just a few stops.

Every stop on the planet is driven by his fierce curiosity to investigate the world’s most iconic unsolved events, hunt for lost cities and search for buried treasure and sacred artifacts. Gates isn’t worried that, with nearly 200 episodes to his name, there will be a lack of expeditions to find the unknown.

“When I first started doing TV, we said the same thing. “Hey, how many mysteries are there to investigate?” What I have learned now is that it is an endless process,” says Gates.

“There’s so much work being done around the world and there’s a lot about our collective human past that we still don’t know that this is kind of an endless amount of mysteries. That was good to realise.”

The fact that he has been exploring the world for so many years involves major technological leaps available today that did not exist when he started. During his visit to Petra, ground radar is used to search for hidden treasures, while digital readers scan the wall drawings to make them more readable than ever.

Gates wastes no time thinking about how a previous story could have been different with more advanced technology. That’s because he and other archaeologists are a meticulous bunch and tend to do thorough work before moving on to the next mystery.

“Basically, no matter how many gadgets you throw at it, there are some really amazing technologies that have changed archaeology,” says Gates. “Whatever technology you throw at it, you have to do what archaeologists call ‘ground reality it’.

“You have to go there and do the hard, careful work of excavating these sites and so to some extent, whatever we come up with, you’re always going to need these dedicated explorers to go there and do the hard work. ”

That hard work means Gates faces a wide range of challenges, such as during his visit to Petra, where he must fend off the edge of a cliff. He jokes that while his knees may not be as forgiving as they have been in the past, the physicality of the program will never change. He knows those moments make for an adventure that is exciting to watch.

Gates adds a new corner of the world to explore as he appears at the Bakersfield Fox Theater on October 23 at 8 p.m. He says entering a new jungle is still scarier because of poisonous snakes and spiders than facing a packed theater.

“It’s a great evening to hear about adventures from the field, but also as we approach Halloween there will be conversations about ghosts and legends,” says Gates. “Even though I’ve been hosting live events and TV shows for 15 years, I still get super nervous offstage right before I walk out.

“Being in front of a live group is scary.”

Tickets are available through the Fox Theater website and joshgates.com

If you miss an episode of “Expedition Unknown” on Discovery, the episodes will be available to stream the next day on the Max and Discovery+ streaming services.

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