World First Travel Insurance Blog

This is the next in a series of interviews where we ask members of the World First team about their experiences in travel. This time it’s the turn of the boss – he pays the bills so he wanted to be next!

First holiday memory

Growing up in Cornwall, we didn’t really go on foreign holidays as we had everything on our doorstep; holidays were spent surfing at the beach. Our first trips were to Guernsey to see my grandparents but I didn’t actually travel abroad with my parents and my first trip abroad on my own was at the age of 16.

The day after I left school I went to France and surfed all the way down the Atlantic coast from Brittany to Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Me, the boys, a couple of camper vans and a few tents. We stayed in a campsite about once a week to have a shower and the rest of the time we just camped in the woods and surfed all day. “Abroad” was awesome and I knew that from that point onwards I’d travel extensively.

Favourite place in the UK

That’s a hard one. For me, I have to choose between the Cornishman in me and West Cornwall where I grew up with everything pretty much on my doorstep and the Devonian and Topsham where we live now. We’ve got the best of both worlds, the Exe Estuary and Exeter’s five minutes away or we can be down at the beach in Exmouth in 10, you can’t go wrong

Holiday reading

My wife says that I never leave work behind. The last book I read was the biography of Theo Paphitis from Dragon’s Den. I always read a biography, something that ultimately will benefit the office. I don’t really read novels and things like that. I listen to music and I don’t read newspapers when I’m away. Often when I do end up on holiday, you know how it is, with a small child you don’t have time for reading a massive amount anyway.

What places have seduced you?

I don’t know, everywhere’s so different. Over the years I’ve been around a lot but one of the most unique places I went to was Los Roques, an archipelago off the coast of Venezuela. It’s very small with a sand and cement runway and an aeroplane only big enough for eight people. We rented a place from a local family who lived in a shed at the back whilst we stayed in their house. We spent the week going off in a boat every day to little isolated islands or sand bars. The cool box would come out with the umbrellas, kite board and snorkel all day, we had lunch provided whilst somebody played the guitar. A pretty special place.

Better to arrive or to travel?

Definitely to travel. The travel is part of the experience. When we were on honeymoon we travelled through India for the first week where we spent the best part of four days in a car. Probably not the most sensible thing to do for the first week of your honeymoon, but it was definitely an experience. You wanted to keep your eyes closed for most of the time but being in the car helped you experience what India had to offer rather than just sitting in a five-star hotel in Delhi.

Worst travel experience

In India, we had two nights on the Ganges white water rafting. We only actually made one night because the accommodation was really just a tent and a camp bed full of bedbugs. We had to sleep with trousers tucked into our socks. That would have been fine but there was no alcohol there either. So we drank a bottle of Indian Champagne which tasted, well, not good. We got ourselves to bed for the night, woke up the following morning, made our excuses and returned to Delhi.

Worst meal abroad

I’ll pretty much eat anything and I’ll try anything at least once. I suppose knowing that I’d just eaten dog in India was not a good experience. At the time it tasted alright, it was only when I found out that it was probably dog that it turned into the worst meal. I just thought it was quite tough meat.

I don’t like not having a choice of meal either. When we were in Venezuela, the family cooked salted fish and we had pretty much the same meal every night. There was nowhere on the island to get anything else to eat. You just had to eat the fish. So paradise does have its drawbacks. We just had a big lunch instead.

Dream trip

We’ve been pretty fortunate to have experienced some pretty cool places like the Maldives or the Caribbean. I suppose we could potentially revisit some of those places and stay in a slightly better accommodation rather than on a friend’s floor in Barbados. We might try a hotel with a real bed.

There’s so many places to go. I’d like the opportunity to spend six weeks further afield without having to come home but there’s no one place in particular. I’d like to go everywhere really,  somewhere in Asia, Vietnam perhaps. I wouldn’t go to the same place year-on-year, I’d like to see somewhere new.

Greatest travel luxury

It may be a bit corny but I work such stupid hours when I’m at home that I suppose the greatest travel luxury would be to be with my wife and daughter. I don’t see my family enough when I’m at work so holidays are an important time to go away, switch off and spend time with them.

Worst tourist trap

I’ve been to a few. The UK has Newquay and Blackpool, Spain has Torremolinos. All the places where you get hassled to buy things all the time drive me up the wall. If I wanted another fake watch or DVD I’d have bought one from eBay. If you put the planning in place in the first instance you can actually avoid the tourist traps anyway.

A traveller or tourist

Definitely a traveller. It’s easy to board a plane at night at Gatwick and get to the other end only to get on a coach and go to your resort, spend three weeks there, not leaving, come home and someone tells you been to Saint Lucia. But in fact, you could have been anywhere because you’ve not actually travelled. If you travel, you experience and experience makes you want to travel more.

Related posts:

1. My life in travel – Mike Garner – World First blog editor
2. My Life In Travel – Steven Usher – World First Website Management

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Life in travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.