What is your idea of perfect holidays?
A slow motorbike, a small boutique hotel, just a couple of friends, an empty beach, a rock to jump into the water from, local taste, plenty of time, silence, quality, style.
What is your favourite way of travelling and why?
A road trip is my best way of travelling. Either on an island or in the mainland. Slow drive, many stops, discovering people’s lives, their food, their agriculture, their free time. Living with them, letting my self go on their suggestions. My own private made to measure holiday.
What are your best Unforgettable places or travel experiences in the world?
I still have a very strong memory of approaching the edge of the top floor of the Empire State Building with my eyes closed and suddenly I was advised to open them. It was like flying over New York City. Or when I first saw Venus of Milos at Musée du Louvre. Small things like that.
What is that small, tiny detail of a life in travel that you never thought you would miss so much now that we are all on lock down?
Packing and unpacking. The juice of travel.
How do you see the next day of travel?
I can’t say if I know how travel will be after this historical period. I am sure how I want it to be. I would like people to travel with respect. To feel. To smell and taste. To know that money can’t buy the experience if people are not ready to experience. Travelling is not an Instagram story. It is a small, unknown restaurant, warm, happy, tasty and not globalised. It’s the people, the natives, the elderly -who helped create this destination-, the history. Travelling should not be “being”, but “knowing”.
Do you think travel should change and how?
I never really liked mass tourism. I can’t stand the central squares of Barcelona e.g. full of people looking the same, behaving the same, walking the same, being similar dressed, buying the same things. There has been a misunderstanding in the last few years, where countries boast of their touristic success by counting numbers. Travelling is not statistics. It is taste, style and respect.