My life in travel – Mike Garner – World First blog editor
In an occasional series of interviews, we’ll be asking members of the World First team and beyond, a number of questions about their travel experiences. Today, it’s the turn of the Editor (well, we’ve got to start somewhere!).
First holiday memory
My father worked for British Railways (as it still was at the time) so from the early 1960s, the cheap travel gave us the opportunity to go to a relatively under-developed part of Spain where I first experienced a sunny beach. We continued going throughout the 60s and 70s. Before that though, I can remember a wet Dun Laoghaire beach, Pinky and Perky at the cinema and my 6-month old brother being fed chips.
Favourite place in the UK
The Sussex Downs and Brighton. I lived there for much of the 1980s. I love the seafront in Brighton in a wet January, the deserted pubs on the beach and the railway journey between Lewes and Newhaven.
Holiday reading
Wherever I go, I like to take a book that is set in the area that I’m in. In recent years then, beach reading in Spain has included Paul Theroux’s travels round the Mediterranean, The Pillars of Hercules or Carlos Ruiz Záfon’s The Shadow of the Wind and Angel’s Game, both set in Barcelona. Being roughly in the context changes the way you read a book and helps you appreciate it more. I’m looking for some set in the Seychelles now!
What places have seduced you?
Paris in the winter can be as depressing as anywhere else, but go to Notre Dame when there are no tourists walking around in November. There’s  strange inner peace.  Alternatively, go to the Algonquin Park in Ontario, Canada (one third of the size of Wales!) and hear the silence fall on you, it’s quite eerie. I also went to Berlin six months after the wall came down, Check Point Charlie was still there as were the the 8 U-Bahn stations closed when the wall went up in 1961. I have an East German stamp on an old passport somewhere. Living history.
Better to arrive or to travel?
That all depends on the journey. Low-cost airlines are a cattle truck nightmare, get there as soon as possible. The train I took between Trieste and Istanbul in 1978, even if it was in Bulgarian couchettes (8 per cabin), was a joy and an integral part of the trip.
Worst travel experiences
Hoverspeed hovercraft across the English channel – the only time I’ve ever been seasick. Any trip on EasyJet. And a trip years ago from the long-defunct station at Boulogne-Aeroglisseurs to Paris on an overcrowded train (two car set when four was required). Sore bum time, at least I wasn’t standing.
Worst meal abroad
When I was 14, I went on a school trip to Paris. The journey was delayed for a reason I can’t remember and we arrived at something like 9 in the evening – to be served with tripe. Needless to say, I ate an orange that evening. It wasn’t all bad though. That was the trip I met the 13 year old that is now my wife.
Dream Trip
A drive from Quebec or Montreal to Boston or New York in September or any one of the trains across the USA. The Taj Mahal any time of the year or the Transsiberean Express, preferably in the summer. Trains, me? Nah, can’t stand ‘em!
Greatest travel luxury
This is going to sound corny, but a nice notebook. I take my iPhone and laptop with me when I travel, but nothing gives me greater pleasure than writing in my increasingly illegible scrawl on a pristine, plain sheet of paper with a good writing implement.
Worst tourist trap
Lourdes. OK, I’ll admit an agenda here. As an atheist, I would say this, but there was ever a case for Christ in the Temple, it’s Lourdes. Maybe I don’t get it, but it’s one of the most repulsive places I’ve ever been to.
Traveller or Tourist?
When go the the now slightly more developed part of Spain I first went to in 1963 or even more, when I go to France, the answer’s neither. I’m at home, I feel part of the furniture – I lived in France for 20 years. When I go anywhere else, I’m a traveller of course, I’m there to discover and talk to people if I can, not just soak up the sun. Even on a package trip to Tunisia, although that was a bit difficult!
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