As kids, we travelled a lot in Ireland, caravan holidays in Downings, Donegal, and rented a cottage outside Roundstone in Connemara.
I remember going up the lane to get milk from the farmer. It was still warm; it had just come from the cow.
Holidays were always sunny, or that’s how I remember it. Life was simpler. No screens. Just football, picnics, and drives.
We’d go with my parents, their friends, and their kids, so there was always a gang.
Hard-boiled eggs with sand on the beach, salad cream sandwiches, chopped lettuce and tomatoes.
Nobody knew what a barbecue was back then. Picnics were it. You just packed up the car and off you went.
One of the most extraordinary was a balloon ride over the Skeleton Coast in Namibia.
We stayed in this amazing conservation lodge and every evening all the animals — zebras, giraffes, and even lions — would walk in lines to a watering hole. None of them were hunting, just going for a drink. It was surreal.
I’ve worked across the Middle East and Africa, and Algeria was fascinating. Architecturally, it’s incredible.
In the 1960s, when they got independence, it was like someone locked the place up and left everything untouched. I remember being up in a spa town in the mountains.
We had to wear flak jackets and helmets because there were still snipers. We once ended up in a brothel in the middle of a cornfield in Luxor.
We didn’t know it was a brothel. It was hilarious. Martin and I love to explore, and we’ve had some wild experiences.
Egypt surprised me the most. People always talk about Irish hospitality but the Egyptians? They have nothing and yet they are so warm, so friendly, impeccably dressed, and full of fun.
You’d be standing on the street wondering where you’re going and someone would just help you, no problem.
The food, the culture, the energy — it blew us away. We’d get a battered yellow Peugeot to town and cross the Nile on the public ferry with locals carrying chickens and vegetables. It was magic.
Rome. I love how the Italians own their streets. They promenade every evening, even in December.
You get your coffee, stop, watch people. There’s a safety and a pride in how they live.
I love the contrast in architecture, from Roman ruins to Mussolini’s Olympic Park, which I find fascinating in its arrogance.
Then, across the river, you have Zaha Hadid’s museum, all flowing and modern, the complete opposite.
Rome has all of that, and fabulous food and shopping too. Martin loves it.
We stayed at Al Moudira, an amazing hotel in Luxor, on the West Bank. All the hotels are on the Nile’s East Bank but I found this place: 50 rooms, run by two incredibly elegant Lebanese women.
One was a jeweller. They were about 6ft 3in, so stylish, and they knew everything. That’s how we saw the city as locals would.
If you asked for the wine list, you got: red, white, or rosé. There were no televisions, no books, no nonsense.
The guests were all a bit eccentric: artists, people writing books. The physio who did massages in the hotel also worked with the Egyptian football team. It was that kind of place.
There was a 50m swimming pool surrounded by French 1930s colonial furniture. It felt like something out of a film. It was just an incredible, vivid experience.
I love offal. In Algeria, you’d get heart, liver, kidneys — all cooked over street barbecues.
They’d thread fat between the meat to keep it moist and flavourful.
Martin hated it. I loved it. I don’t think many people say offal when asked that question but it really was incredible.
Safari. It’s not what people expect from me but it’s probably the thing I love most.
We’ve done a few: Kruger in South Africa, Phinda, Zimbabwe, Namibia. They’re all different.
You do three days, get to know your ranger, and you never know what you’ll see.
We once woke up to an elephant drinking from our pool. Another time, we found a cheetah with her cubs, just 15m away.
We saw two male elephants fighting and one even came for the Land Rover.
Japan is top of the list. I want to go to the Expo (2025 World Expo in Osaka, Kansai, Japan) this year.
I also want to go to Argentina for three months. I’d start at the bottom and work my way up.
But I have to learn Spanish first. If you’re going to do a place properly, you’ve got to speak the language.
