Conan O’Brien’s passport is set to get its most elusive stamp yet.
The host has announced he’s heading to India to tape a new episode of Conan O’Brien Must Go.
An India installment has long been a white whale for O’Brien, who has been trying to arrange a shoot there since 2018, when he was hosting his earlier travel series Conan Without Borders. But permitting issues derailed the trip. The snag? They were in trouble with the Indian consulate.
The problem traced back to a remote segment that had aired 14 years earlier on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. In the September 2004 bit, writer Andy Blitz called NBC’s IT desk for help with computer pop-ups. When Blitz asked if he could bring the computer in, he learned the IT team was based in India—and promptly hopped on a plane.
The remote aired without incident, but it later came back to haunt Team Coco. When producers applied for permits for the 2018 shoot, they were informed they had been penalized for filming the 2004 segment without proper authorization.
“They were holding up the permits, holding up the permits, holding up the shooting visas,” head writer Mike Sweeney recalled on Inside Conan. “And then all of a sudden, some bureaucrat in San Francisco at the Indian Consulate was like, ‘We found evidence that Conan sent someone to India in 2004 without the proper permits!’”
As a result, approval to film Conan Without Borders in India was repeatedly delayed or denied. O’Brien later described additional hurdles his team faced, permit issues aside.
“I really wanted to go to India and do a whole travel show… and I would still like to do that,” he said on a 2023 episode of Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend. “[But] of all the governments that we encountered, India… want[ed] a lot of assurances about what we’re going to do while we’re there. They’d like to see the footage.”
O’Brien has visited the India personally, including a 2010 trip to shoot an American Express commercial, and has spoken fondly of the country.
“I have to tell you, of all the places I’ve been in the world, my brief time in India… it is the most different culture I’ve ever seen,” he told Indian comedian Vir Das in 2023, recalling his time in Jaipur. “People, cars, livestock—everything is moving, but there was no formalized flow of traffic. Everything was moving in all directions. And I thought it was kind of beautiful.”
While in India, O’Brien will likely meet listeners who have called into his spinoff podcast Conan O’Brien Needs A Fan. Earlier this year, he learned his photo hangs outside the restrooms of a bar in Bangalore, and in the podcast’s latest episode, he speaks with a newlywed whose wife is vocally unimpressed with him.
“It started with disdain,” the fan tells O’Brien, “and now it’s, ‘Okay, whatever.’”
But from O’Brien’s announcement, it sounds like he hopes to meet more than just a few fans. “Hey India, I’m coming to visit and I can’t wait to meet all 1.46 billion of you!” he quipped Thursday.
India is the second location O’Brien is known to be visiting for his show’s upcoming third season, which is expected to release sometime in 2026. Last month, he visited the Philippines, where he landed his latest international acting gig.
