Trivia / Destinos

• Actor-Shared Background: Like his character Don Fernando Castillo, Augusto Benedico was a native of Spain who moved to Mexico during the Spanish Civil War. Fernando's frailty wasn't an act either, as the octogenarian Benedico Died During Production.
• Cast the Expert: Since it's an Edutainment show done in a Telenovela format, several prolific Mexican telenovela performers are in the cast, particularly Liliana Abud as Raquel and Augusto Benedico as Don Fernando. Abud has since turned her focus to writing telenovelas, with La otra and Entre el amor y el odio among her credits.
• Dawson Casting: Liliana Abud was 43 when this series was made, about a decade older than Raquel seems to be.
• Real-Life Relative: Fernando's youngest grandchild, Maricarmen, is played by the real-life daughter of Liliana Abud, who plays Raquel.
• Shoot the Money: Destinos had a budget of $5 million (about $25 million in today's money), on par with lower-budget studio films of the era and extraordinarily expensive for an educational series, but it shows in all of the international location shooting.
• Technology Marches On: These days, Raquel could do most of her investigative legwork on the internet (but that wouldn't allow for nice scenic shots of various countries or cutaways to present factoids about them), but especially there's that bulky, typewriter-like laptop she uses.