Simon Calder looks back on 30 years of travel with The Independent
Hear Simon's favourite travel tales and insight into his most cherished holiday destinations and savour his jet-setting top tips following an illustrious career as a travel correspondent spanning 30 years.
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00:00:00That's the first time I've cooled off in a hot spring.
00:00:13What strange creation is this?
00:00:17The Filipino capital is full of noise and colour.
00:00:21This is Mission Control.
00:00:23We've just made it.
00:00:25This is a particular thrill on a windy day.
00:00:28Stockholm is unique.
00:00:30Well, you are stuck in the cheap seat.
00:00:32Bird class with me.
00:00:33Why don't you have a guess where I am?
00:00:35This is the place that put the gorge in gorgeous.
00:00:39Delivering fun in the sun.
00:00:42Oh, my goodness.
00:00:45I'm a master of martial arts.
00:00:47A week of adventures.
00:00:52Uluru rising from the desert.
00:00:56Las Vegas is where the world goes to extremes.
00:00:59Shambles. No, not my dress sense.
00:01:02I'm on cloud nine.
00:01:04There's 1,000 dishes on offer.
00:01:07So, I've never drunk a tree before.
00:01:09Do you want to race?
00:01:13Yes, you are concerned.
00:01:15Well, travel expert Simon Calder is right here.
00:01:17So, Simon, British Airways, Ryanair
00:01:19cancelling flights all over the place?
00:01:21They certainly have, yep, hundreds of flights.
00:01:23Network Rail, which is carrying out the work,
00:01:25says it's essential because, well, bad weather
00:01:28and, indeed, strikes.
00:01:29Maybe even three different international driving permits.
00:01:42Hello, and welcome to a very special virtual event
00:01:45from The Independent.
00:01:46I hope you enjoyed that slideshow of Simon Calder's travels.
00:01:49I'm Annabel Grossman, Global Travel Editor,
00:01:52and tonight we're celebrating Simon's illustrious career
00:01:55as travel correspondent with The Independent,
00:01:58which has spanned 30 years.
00:02:00We'll be hearing Simon's favourite travel tales,
00:02:03getting insight into his most cherished holiday destinations
00:02:06and savouring his jet-setting travel tips.
00:02:10Simon's journey had humble beginnings.
00:02:12His first travel job was at Gatwick Airport,
00:02:15where he cleaned aircraft for Laker Airways
00:02:17and worked as a security officer.
00:02:20After a stint of writing guidebooks on hitchhiking,
00:02:23Cuba, Central America and Amsterdam,
00:02:26he first became The Independent's travel correspondent in 1994,
00:02:31where he earned the moniker The Man Who Pays His Way
00:02:34because he doesn't accept free travel.
00:02:37We have so many questions from our viewers,
00:02:39but first I'm going to turn to our travel editor, Ben Parker,
00:02:43who's joining us this evening.
00:02:45Now, Ben, if you had one travel question
00:02:47that you could ask Simon, what would it be?
00:02:50Well, hi, Simon.
00:02:53Very specific to me and my situation, as you know,
00:02:55I've got a young son, five months old,
00:02:58so I'd like to ask you if you were to suggest
00:03:02somewhere I could go with a baby and my wife
00:03:04and we could have a great time somewhere,
00:03:06great for the baby but also great for the adults,
00:03:08where would you suggest?
00:03:09Almost anywhere as long as he is under two,
00:03:13because, well, actually probably under one,
00:03:16because then he can't move too far.
00:03:20Now, you can't take, as far as I know,
00:03:22even on Ryanair, babies as cabin baggage.
00:03:24I mean, don't put them in the overhead lockers,
00:03:26but they are a lot cheaper and a lot easier to manage.
00:03:30So I think you can go pretty much anywhere,
00:03:33but the thing is they've got very, very sensitive skin,
00:03:36so at this time of year, for your summer holiday,
00:03:39I would either say a great British seaside resort.
00:03:43I'm a huge fan, personally, of Dorset.
00:03:47There is nowhere, no better county,
00:03:49as far as I'm aware.
00:03:50Alternatively, you've got a car, haven't you?
00:03:53I do.
00:03:54See, just drive it in the general direction
00:03:57of probably Dieppe.
00:03:59Well, go over on the New Haven-Dieppe ferry.
00:04:02You're not going to get caught in passport queues
00:04:04because the controls are done on the French side,
00:04:07and that's just absolutely lovely.
00:04:09Turn left or right, you'll find a beautiful campsite,
00:04:12Ypres Marche hypermarket to stock up on food and drink.
00:04:15It's going to be fantastic.
00:04:16Lucky, lucky you.
00:04:19Okay, I'm quite interested, Simon,
00:04:20what you think would be a good destination for me.
00:04:23Slightly different traveller to Ben.
00:04:25So I like adventure.
00:04:28I like travelling alone,
00:04:30and I don't like crowds,
00:04:32so I'd like to avoid anything too touristy.
00:04:35Where would you suggest I go?
00:04:36Well, you could go to somewhere in the far north.
00:04:39The worst holiday I ever had was on an adventure cruise
00:04:45by a company called Adventure Canada,
00:04:48and it was just a disaster from beginning to end.
00:04:52It went from Greenland,
00:04:54which was quite difficult to get to,
00:04:57and it was supposed to be going to all these amazing places
00:05:00on the coast of Greenland and in Arctic Canada.
00:05:03We went to about one-third of them.
00:05:05Oh, wow.
00:05:06The cruise director spent more time enjoying herself
00:05:10with full view of the entire payload of passengers on the ship
00:05:15while she, her partner, and their child were going around in a boat,
00:05:18just like Ben and his son and his wife,
00:05:22going around having a lovely time among these icebergs.
00:05:25We have paid thousands of pounds for this.
00:05:28I will get to your question in just a minute,
00:05:30and it was utterly, utterly awful.
00:05:33I told them afterwards that this was awful,
00:05:35and they just kind of shrugged and said, well, too bad.
00:05:38And I'll tell you what, this also speaks to how nice Canadians are.
00:05:42It was 95% Canadians on board, and they just took this.
00:05:47It was me, it was an American, it was a German.
00:05:50We were absolutely furious that we spent so much and got so little.
00:05:55So the Northlands are very good.
00:05:57I'd probably say, actually, just go to the far north of Scotland,
00:06:02Shetland, oh, Orkney, the Western Isles,
00:06:05Lewis, Harris, so beautiful, so accessible,
00:06:08and also you don't have to fly there,
00:06:10which a lot of people would say would be a very good thing,
00:06:12and they're better than flipping Canada.
00:06:16So now we've done your worst ever holiday.
00:06:19Oh, did I mention that? Yes.
00:06:21Let's lighten it up a bit, and let's go with your,
00:06:23in your 30 years of working in travel,
00:06:25or 30 years as our travel correspondent,
00:06:27what was your favourite trip?
00:06:29Well, I can generally only remember the last one I did,
00:06:34which was, ended on Sunday, and that involved going,
00:06:39well, I was on a sort of two-week,
00:06:42all kind of merging into one.
00:06:45But basically, I went to Greece,
00:06:49and went round the island of Zante, which I'd never been to before.
00:06:52I went to Milan to trace the location
00:06:55of the 100th anniversary of the first motorway in the world.
00:07:00I then did the stupid thing,
00:07:02which was go from the southernmost point of Switzerland
00:07:05to the northernmost point in a day.
00:07:07That was my plan.
00:07:09Due to operational difficulties,
00:07:11of which there are a fair number, I find,
00:07:13I didn't actually start at the southernmost point
00:07:16till 25 past two in the afternoon,
00:07:18which was a mistake,
00:07:20because Switzerland isn't the biggest country in the world,
00:07:22but it has got the highest mountains in Europe
00:07:24between you and the northernmost point.
00:07:26So that was a, well, it wasn't a disaster.
00:07:29And then I went to Germany, to France, to Croatia,
00:07:35and had such an interesting time meeting so many people.
00:07:39And I'm afraid an awful lot of that is due to hitchhiking,
00:07:42which is something that perhaps wouldn't be for you,
00:07:44but it's certainly for me,
00:07:46and I just, ah, bless the fact
00:07:49that you can stand by the side of the road
00:07:51pretty much anywhere, stick your thumb out,
00:07:53and you are going to meet a self-selecting bunch
00:07:57of really nice people and learn their stories.
00:07:59So it's just great.
00:08:01And so I do hitchhike a lot,
00:08:03but, I mean, that's partly because I can drive,
00:08:06but I'm a terrible driver,
00:08:08and almost anybody who picks me up
00:08:10is going to be guaranteed to be a better driver.
00:08:15So I've had a couple of hitchhiking experiences.
00:08:18When I was at university,
00:08:19I hitchhiked from Leeds across to Amsterdam.
00:08:22Great.
00:08:23I just remember it being incredibly cold,
00:08:25but a really, really great experience.
00:08:27What about you, Ben?
00:08:28Any hitchhiking stories?
00:08:30I have never hitchhiked.
00:08:32Ben, come on, let's go.
00:08:33Next travel article, Ben.
00:08:35I was going to ask you, Simon, how much it's changed.
00:08:38Do you think it's changed in the time you've been here,
00:08:41or is it harder to hitchhike, is it better?
00:08:44It's, right, OK, so first of all,
00:08:47and we don't want to get locked into hitchhiking
00:08:49because there are literally only three people in the world
00:08:52who still hitchhike, and they are me,
00:08:55Tony Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet,
00:08:57and Hilary Brack, founder of Brack Guides.
00:09:00And I don't know why we're the only ones.
00:09:02That's quite good company, perhaps I should join.
00:09:04Look, honestly, it was Sunday.
00:09:07I was in Rovinj, in beautiful Istria in Croatia.
00:09:10I've got to get to Rijeka Airport
00:09:12because I'm not paying what EasyJet want from Pula,
00:09:15so I'm going to Rijeka,
00:09:18where Ryanair is half the price.
00:09:20But the only bus of the day leaves at 4.40 in the morning,
00:09:24which is a little bit antisocial,
00:09:25so you just have to hitchhike.
00:09:27And I genuinely, all these places,
00:09:29I just think, well, what would you do?
00:09:31And if you're trying to get from the northernmost point
00:09:34in Switzerland to somewhere you can actually stay
00:09:37for the night, there aren't any buses,
00:09:40there aren't any taxis, you've got to hitchhike.
00:09:42So it's just, what else would I do?
00:09:46But I'll take you hitchhiking somewhere, that would be fun.
00:09:49I will take you up on that invitation.
00:09:51Right, okay.
00:09:52So it sounds like you've had plenty of interesting experiences,
00:09:56lots of ups and downs.
00:09:57After 30 years, you still get excited about getting on a plane,
00:10:01going out hitchhiking, waiting on a train platform.
00:10:04Oh, so exciting.
00:10:06Not least because travel is so much better
00:10:10compared with what it was like in 1994.
00:10:15I was going to say everything has got better.
00:10:17Some things haven't.
00:10:18Airport security is more of a pain.
00:10:21But in terms of choice, cost, safety,
00:10:29which I would say are three pretty important things,
00:10:32everything is better.
00:10:33And of course I get excited.
00:10:35And I love flying.
00:10:36I'm sorry, I like being on trains as well.
00:10:39But there you are just,
00:10:44you can travel far and wide in Europe
00:10:47despite what we've done to ourselves with Brexit.
00:10:49You are going to have such an exciting time.
00:10:52And as soon as I get back,
00:10:53I'm immediately planning my next trip,
00:10:56which actually involves the Paris Olympics.
00:10:59No, I'm not competing.
00:11:01And then getting across to Canada
00:11:05and trying to do some quite challenging things
00:11:09like get to a part of, right,
00:11:11the worst place in the world.
00:11:12I'm sorry, we will stop talking about hitchhiking.
00:11:14It's the last hitchhiking thing.
00:11:16The worst place in the world for hitchhiking, bizarrely.
00:11:19And I haven't got it in for Canadians here at all.
00:11:21I love Canadians.
00:11:22But Nova Scotia is where-
00:11:24Oh, one of my favourite places in the world.
00:11:26I know, it's absolutely beautiful.
00:11:27But don't hitchhike.
00:11:28Don't hitchhike.
00:11:29And I'm not an axe murderer.
00:11:31But again, the nicest people in the world.
00:11:33Yeah, exactly.
00:11:35So I almost want to go there
00:11:38in order to see, is it me?
00:11:40Is it the Canadians?
00:11:42Should we send Ben as well?
00:11:43Is it you?
00:11:44I'm going to be better.
00:11:45You can be the test.
00:11:46Maybe you'll get around nice and easily.
00:11:50And then I want to go through New Brunswick
00:11:52up to the Gaspé Peninsula.
00:11:54And it's all very good.
00:11:55And what I'm also very, very fortunate to do,
00:11:58because not having a proper job,
00:12:00because you actually do all the work,
00:12:02is I don't kind of quite know
00:12:05when I'll get back or how.
00:12:07And finding those things out
00:12:09is part of the thrill, I find.
00:12:11It certainly keeps us on our toes.
00:12:13Yes.
00:12:14Absolutely.
00:12:15So I'm going to take you back to 1994 for a minute.
00:12:18Because we have a question from Chris Jones,
00:12:20who says he was an early user of Laker Airways.
00:12:23Oh, yeah.
00:12:24Which I don't remember, Ben.
00:12:27When did they go?
00:12:29They went bust in 1982.
00:12:31That's years slightly before that.
00:12:34And Laker Airways was...
00:12:38Freddie Laker was just a pioneer of low-cost aviation.
00:12:41And the moment he went in,
00:12:43prices effectively halved across the Atlantic
00:12:47and opened up everything.
00:12:49So he was brilliant.
00:12:51And Laker Airways was a great thing.
00:12:53And people were queuing around the block
00:12:55at Victoria Station.
00:12:57There was a Pret-a-Manger.
00:12:58If you come out of the station and turn left,
00:13:00there's a Pret-a-Manger.
00:13:01That was the Laker Airways office.
00:13:03And you can still sort of recognise it.
00:13:05And people were just so desperate
00:13:08to be able to travel across the Atlantic.
00:13:10It was fantastic.
00:13:11So actually, I was mistaken.
00:13:13I'm taking you back quite a bit further than 1994.
00:13:16Yes.
00:13:17See, Chris was keen to know what you remember from that time.
00:13:20Well, it's just transformational.
00:13:23And the thing was, because the other...
00:13:25So British Airways, TWA, Pan Am,
00:13:28thought, we don't like this competition,
00:13:30but we're going to have to cut our prices.
00:13:32So actually, a lot of the time,
00:13:34I was flying across the Atlantic on Pan Am,
00:13:38who miraculously, today we learn,
00:13:40are going to be reinvented next summer.
00:13:43TWA, BA, and that was part of the problem.
00:13:47So you get on those airlines
00:13:50for the same price as you pay on Laker.
00:13:52You get a cup of tea and a meal.
00:13:55So that paid to Laker.
00:13:57But then two years later,
00:13:58along comes Richard Branson with Virgin Atlantic.
00:14:01Hooray, which is still offering great choice and service.
00:14:06Okay, well, moving on,
00:14:08we have a question from Paul Humphreys.
00:14:11And Linda Hudson has also asked this question.
00:14:13What is your most memorable journey and why?
00:14:16Ah, okay.
00:14:18Well, they've all been great, mostly.
00:14:22Apart from Canada.
00:14:23Did I mention Canada?
00:14:24I think I did.
00:14:25So the most memorable one was in 2006.
00:14:34And this was in November of that year,
00:14:37a gap month.
00:14:39Now, this was before flying a lot
00:14:43in a short length of time
00:14:45was considered inappropriate.
00:14:49And I absolutely sign up with that.
00:14:51But this was, okay, you're a kind of normal person.
00:14:56You don't get a year off to go around
00:14:58and do all the gap year stuff.
00:15:00So how about going around the world in a month
00:15:05and crucially doing an exciting activity every day?
00:15:12And so I went from,
00:15:14let's see if I remember it very, very quickly,
00:15:16went from London to Dubai,
00:15:18where I could go skiing in Ski Dubai
00:15:21and then swimming 10 minutes later to Mumbai,
00:15:25where I went to, I think, on a Bollywood set,
00:15:29which was quite an experience.
00:15:30And the whole thing was to have these great experiences.
00:15:33Singapore, Darwin, and going to National Park,
00:15:37Litchfield National Park, just south of Darwin.
00:15:39Absolutely beautiful.
00:15:41Sydney, doing the Harbour Bridge climb, which is great.
00:15:46New Zealand, where I did a bungee jump
00:15:50and I'm absolutely terrified of heights, completely.
00:15:55But the thing is-
00:15:56A bungee jump is one thing I wouldn't do.
00:15:58Well, yeah, but if it's your job, you kind of have to.
00:16:01So yeah, there you are.
00:16:03You just do it.
00:16:06Then the absolute highlight was Latin America,
00:16:09starting with Easter Island.
00:16:12Wow.
00:16:13Just the most blissful place on earth.
00:16:15And then Chile and Argentina,
00:16:19doing Cruces de Lagos,
00:16:22which is the great route through lakes and mountains and so on,
00:16:26crossing the border from,
00:16:28I'm going to say Puerto Morales, don't write in,
00:16:31to Bariloche, and that's a great adventure.
00:16:35Buenos Aires, where I tried to tango
00:16:37and unfortunately made it too much like
00:16:39a kind of dangerous contact sport.
00:16:42And then, oh, across to Uruguay, wonderful.
00:16:48Morocco, all the way through Morocco on the Marrakesh Express
00:16:53and then into Europe,
00:16:57along the Spanish south coast, then north coast,
00:17:00and then into Paris, up the Eiffel Tower.
00:17:02It was November, nobody there.
00:17:04And then finally, you could fly from Caen in Normandy
00:17:08to Shoreham.
00:17:10That's just one of the one million air routes
00:17:13which have come and gone,
00:17:14and finally got back one month later,
00:17:16about £2,000 poorer in terms of how much I spent,
00:17:20but that was very special.
00:17:23All in one month.
00:17:24Sounds amazing.
00:17:25Well, I'd quite like a gap month.
00:17:27Yeah, well, you can have a gap month,
00:17:29but just get around Dorset.
00:17:33So, you're very passionate about a lot of the destinations you visit.
00:17:37Is there anywhere that you haven't felt comfortable
00:17:39or you would avoid visiting again?
00:17:44Probably the Transit Lounge at Kuwait City Airport.
00:17:49Not for any great reason other than,
00:17:53oh, this sounds terrible.
00:17:55You're going to struggle to get a drink.
00:17:57I mean, obviously, that's good.
00:17:59I salute abstinence.
00:18:03And you've flown in on Kuwait Airways,
00:18:06which isn't the greatest experience,
00:18:08and you've got a seven-hour wait for your next flight.
00:18:12So, but apart from that, I think everywhere's been great.
00:18:17Okay, so this is actually a question for both of you.
00:18:20It's from Jackie Pears.
00:18:21Is there one thing that you would never travel without,
00:18:25aside from your passport?
00:18:27Yes, and it's very straightforward.
00:18:31So, I will take two credit cards,
00:18:34because typically one will bounce or not be accepted.
00:18:38I'll take cash, significant amount of cash,
00:18:42because that generally will get you out of most scrapes.
00:18:45I will take a change of clothes,
00:18:48because I'm always just complying with the baggage rules,
00:18:52and so I always just wash as I go.
00:18:56Toothbrush and razor, and that'd be it.
00:18:58We've slightly gone over the one thing.
00:19:01But we'll give you a full bag.
00:19:04Well, one thing, I don't know.
00:19:07Well, I think maybe a...
00:19:13Yeah, well, I suppose you would have to just say cash.
00:19:15You just say money.
00:19:16Okay.
00:19:17Yeah.
00:19:18Ben?
00:19:19Well, I mean, yes, assuming I've got a change of clothes and money,
00:19:22a very practical assignment.
00:19:24See, I was going from the fact that I'm a romantic at heart,
00:19:28and I have to have my AirPods or earphones,
00:19:30because I need to have them in and pick the right song
00:19:32when I'm walking around to frame the scene as I'm going.
00:19:35That's wrong, Ben.
00:19:37It doesn't matter if I can't pay for the beer.
00:19:39I work in a kitchen, and I just need to be able to have that moment.
00:19:43That's so wrong.
00:19:45Is that because you object to Ben being clubbed in?
00:19:48Yeah, because...
00:19:49And I think this is something that I'm...
00:19:51Right, we're probably going to have to arm wrestle about this.
00:19:54Yeah.
00:19:56So I think that, yeah, I'm a huge admirer of airports
00:20:01when I'm walking around the city of London
00:20:03where we're lucky enough to work, because I kind of know it.
00:20:06But whenever you're anywhere abroad, you want to be hearing the sounds,
00:20:09but not least because you're going to get run over by some mad driver.
00:20:13You want to hear what's happening in the market.
00:20:15You want to hear the cacophony, the church bells, the birdsong.
00:20:18I do.
00:20:19All of those things.
00:20:20But I like to do a bit of both.
00:20:21Throughout the day I might do that,
00:20:23and have an aimless wander with my soundtrack.
00:20:26Okay, and what is the top of your soundtrack?
00:20:28I was going to say, do you create your soundtrack depending on the city?
00:20:32It very much depends on my mood, which can be influenced by the city.
00:20:35Go on, give us one.
00:20:37Well, to give you an idea of my mood today,
00:20:39I've been listening to lots of Nirvana.
00:20:41Have you?
00:20:42That's a bit, because you weren't even born when Nirvana was invented.
00:20:45It's true.
00:20:46Is that to go around Dorset?
00:20:48No, no, no.
00:20:49When I'm down in Dorset, it's probably a bit of Jack Johnson.
00:20:52Right.
00:20:53What are you going to be listening to, by the way?
00:20:55What would I be?
00:20:56And you have to judge on whether airpods are in or out.
00:20:59Well, I'm slightly leaning towards you, Simon.
00:21:02If I'm walking around London, or if I'm on the train,
00:21:05I'll always have my airpods in.
00:21:07But I tend to always be kind of plugged out
00:21:12when I'm walking around somewhere new.
00:21:14Because what I often do when I get to a new place is go for a run.
00:21:17And I'll run around the city or around the town
00:21:20just to get to know it.
00:21:21Because you cover a lot of ground quite quickly.
00:21:23You see quite a lot and you get a real feel for the place.
00:21:26But you've still got your luggage.
00:21:27I mean, that's quite good.
00:21:28Well, I dropped my luggage off at the hotel.
00:21:29Oh, okay.
00:21:30All right.
00:21:31Fair enough.
00:21:32Staying on the train.
00:21:33With a wheelie behind me.
00:21:34But what I always travel with,
00:21:36and I get anxious when I don't have, is a book.
00:21:38As I find that I'll get much less stressed out
00:21:42by a delay or anything going wrong,
00:21:44or if you're in a not very nice hotel,
00:21:46or if you're in a town that you don't like,
00:21:48if you've got something to kind of take your mind off it.
00:21:50It's quite stressful, isn't it,
00:21:51when you're at the end of a book and you're going on holiday
00:21:53and you're like, do I need to bring another one?
00:21:55Do I not?
00:21:56I have been known on a backpacking trip to take half the book.
00:21:59No.
00:22:00Yeah.
00:22:01When I was really worried about weight.
00:22:03The last chapter came in the backpack.
00:22:06Are you counting guidebooks in this?
00:22:09I haven't used a guidebook in quite a while.
00:22:12I've taken photos of guidebooks.
00:22:14I don't know if I've actually carried a physical guidebook
00:22:17in quite a long time.
00:22:19No, I mean, I love a guidebook
00:22:21and I tend to buy them and read them beforehand.
00:22:24And then I quite like it when I'm going around going,
00:22:26I remember reading about that.
00:22:27But I don't take it and have it out when I'm going.
00:22:31Okay, well, that's a very analogue thing that I do,
00:22:35which is use guidebooks.
00:22:36But as you mentioned, I do.
00:22:37Any particular guidebook you'd take?
00:22:39Ah, well, if you lined up
00:22:43Dorling Kindersley, Bratt, Rough Guides and Lonely Planet,
00:22:47I'd probably go for the Lonely Planet
00:22:49because they tend to have the best maps.
00:22:51So it's as simple as that.
00:22:53So you'd use a physical map rather than Google Maps?
00:22:56Well, yeah, right, for several reasons.
00:22:59So, first of all,
00:23:02a physical map isn't going to be battery dependent.
00:23:07If somebody nicks your guidebook, it's annoying,
00:23:09but it's not as annoying if they nick your phone.
00:23:11And therefore, if you're standing on a street corner
00:23:13trying to work out where you're going,
00:23:15it's possibly better.
00:23:18It doesn't consume truckloads of gigabytes,
00:23:22which you then find inadvertently
00:23:24are going to cost you a million pounds.
00:23:26And you can write all over them.
00:23:29Yeah.
00:23:30So I like them.
00:23:31But I agree, that's a bit like,
00:23:33did we mention hitchhiking?
00:23:34A bit like hitchhiking.
00:23:35It's a bit niche these days.
00:23:38Okay, so this is a fun question from Satnam Bose.
00:23:41I've been a judge of that.
00:23:42Oh, I think you'll like this one.
00:23:44After 30 years of worldwide travel,
00:23:46what is the most bizarre or unexpected item
00:23:49you found in a hotel room?
00:23:51Oh, great question.
00:23:54And, well, this happened actually on Friday?
00:23:59Yes.
00:24:00I walked into a hotel.
00:24:03Well, it was worse than that.
00:24:05I'd actually just come from the northernmost part
00:24:07of Switzerland.
00:24:08Did I mention that?
00:24:09And I got a lift with Sergei,
00:24:11really nice Kazakh German.
00:24:14And he was practicing his English.
00:24:16So therefore he was prepared to take me
00:24:18to Donau Schingen in Germany,
00:24:23the source of the Danube.
00:24:25And it was 10 o'clock at night.
00:24:26And there was only one hotel open
00:24:28and they only had one room.
00:24:30So I had to book it.
00:24:31And I walked in and you have got,
00:24:33on the wall of this hotel,
00:24:35stuffed animals, little deers and things.
00:24:39I find that quite creepy, I think.
00:24:41It was extraordinarily creepy.
00:24:43I mean, what's happening in the world?
00:24:45And that was Friday.
00:24:47Ben, any strange items in hotel rooms?
00:24:51No.
00:24:52Unexpected items in the bedding area.
00:24:54No, not so much for me,
00:24:57although I was talking to somebody earlier
00:24:59about how I've seen other travel colleagues
00:25:02check into hotels
00:25:03and the hotel have scoured their,
00:25:05the journalist's Instagram account.
00:25:07It's happened to me before.
00:25:09And you come in and there's an image of you
00:25:11on a cape or something.
00:25:12What if they've scored back
00:25:14and there's a picture of an ex
00:25:15and you're there with a new partner?
00:25:17Is there something we need to know?
00:25:19No, no.
00:25:21Right, oh goodness.
00:25:22And also, sorry, if I can have another go.
00:25:25You're allowed, yeah.
00:25:26People.
00:25:27I quite often find that I go into a room
00:25:31and there's people already occupying it
00:25:33who I don't know.
00:25:34So it's not your hotel room
00:25:35or you've been checked into the same hotel room?
00:25:37No, and this happened at the adults only,
00:25:39I think it's called the Weimaster in Berlin,
00:25:43in March.
00:25:44Oh wow, okay.
00:25:45And that was the only hotel room in town.
00:25:47It cost me 300 euros.
00:25:49And I walked in and, well, luckily there were,
00:25:53the person wasn't there but, you know,
00:25:56there was bedding and towels strewn casually
00:25:59around the place,
00:26:01half-drunk drinks and so on.
00:26:03But that was better than,
00:26:06earlier I think this was in Spain, in Palma,
00:26:09near the airport,
00:26:11where clearly I was allocated a room
00:26:14where people were enjoying a, I guess,
00:26:17a holiday romance.
00:26:19So it was a great surprise to all of us.
00:26:21So, yeah.
00:26:22It makes stuffed animals not seem too bad now, does it?
00:26:25You're making a habit of this now, Simon.
00:26:29Shall we move swiftly on?
00:26:30Very good.
00:26:32So I'm keen to know the answer to this.
00:26:34Janet Hall has asked,
00:26:35which places have you wanted to visit
00:26:37but not yet been able to go?
00:26:39Okay, Turkmenistan.
00:26:42And that's because I tried to go there in 2018
00:26:46after I was on this fantastic journey
00:26:49from, from your point of view,
00:26:53Western Kazakhstan
00:26:57through Kyrgyzstan,
00:27:04Tajikistan,
00:27:06going to chuck in Uzbekistan,
00:27:08and Turkmenistan was the natural one to continue to,
00:27:13but they wouldn't let me in
00:27:14because they Google who you are
00:27:18and they found out I was a journalist.
00:27:20And this was great
00:27:21because although I haven't been to Turkmenistan
00:27:24and I can't wait to go,
00:27:25it meant I had to swerve at the border
00:27:28and go to a place called Khiva,
00:27:30K-H-I-V-A,
00:27:32which is probably,
00:27:34well, certainly the best place I went,
00:27:37I've been in this century, I would say,
00:27:39just this magnificent, preserved,
00:27:42medieval Islamic city with walls
00:27:46and it's just absolutely miraculous
00:27:49in the middle of the Uzbek desert.
00:27:53So that was great.
00:27:55And also you could sit on the roof of a nice cheap B&B
00:27:59and drink beer and watch the sun go down,
00:28:01so I was happy, frankly.
00:28:03That does sound pretty nice.
00:28:05I think we've spoken a little bit about Uzbekistan in the past,
00:28:07increasingly easy to travel to?
00:28:09Yeah, you don't need,
00:28:11I had to, when I went, and this was only 2018,
00:28:14you had to go to the Uzbek consulate in West London
00:28:18and they would say, you must take cash money
00:28:21and this piece of paper to the Barclays Bank
00:28:24on the corner of Notting Hill,
00:28:26pay that in and then bring back the proof
00:28:28and then we will give you a visa.
00:28:30Now I think it's visa free or visa on arrival or something.
00:28:33Rebecca Parmenter asks,
00:28:37how much money could you have saved over the years
00:28:40by not paying your own way?
00:28:42Oh, that's a good question.
00:28:46So, if I wasn't paying, well, I suppose all of it in theory,
00:28:51but on the other hand, I don't,
00:28:53honestly, it's so much more fun paying your own way
00:28:56because things almost always go catastrophically wrong
00:29:00and that means that you're never stuck for anything to write about.
00:29:03Well, OK, can I slightly reframe the question into
00:29:07how much does it cost to pay your own way
00:29:10and how has that changed over time?
00:29:12Is that fair?
00:29:13Yeah, I'd be interested to hear that.
00:29:15So, it's got cheaper, much, much, much cheaper,
00:29:19not just relative to price levels in general,
00:29:23but just overall.
00:29:25So, yeah, if you go back to 1994,
00:29:30I guess I was spending about £10,000 a year on travel
00:29:34and now it's probably closer to £5,000 a year on travel.
00:29:38And that's a significant number of trips.
00:29:40Yeah, and if you wanted to, in 1994,
00:29:44it was really, really, really difficult to...
00:29:48EasyJet didn't exist in those days,
00:29:51to keep the cost of a trip down.
00:29:54And going to Italy or something,
00:29:56they'd just say, well, you want to go to Rome, that's £250.
00:29:59Of course it is.
00:30:00And you'd be thinking, well, I don't want to pay that much.
00:30:03But you had to, whereas now, if you think, well, £250,
00:30:06I'll go on a Wednesday in November and it'll cost me £40.
00:30:12So, yeah, it's got much easier
00:30:14and that's why so many things have got better.
00:30:17Can I just ask?
00:30:18This might be a bit of a nerdy journalist question,
00:30:20but with the...
00:30:21Well, you are a nerdy journalist.
00:30:23Yeah, with the way things have changed
00:30:25and I was thinking also the cost associated with it,
00:30:27when you were out on the road in, say, the mid to late 90s,
00:30:30how were you filing copy?
00:30:31How were you filing stories?
00:30:33That's a great question.
00:30:35Because it's so easy now, isn't it?
00:30:37Because you have Wi-Fi.
00:30:38It was just... Right.
00:30:41We knew about email in 1994,
00:30:48but it wasn't...
00:30:50It was so uncommon that, for instance, in the late 1990s,
00:30:54lots of people were filing by fax.
00:30:57They would type their copy, they would send it by fax.
00:31:01You would then get somebody taking their paper copy
00:31:04and retyping it.
00:31:07Weird.
00:31:08Now, there were some of us
00:31:10who were kind of like to think of ourselves at the cutting edge,
00:31:13where we would do something and the verb was tandying in.
00:31:17And you would get your laptop and you'd get special connectors
00:31:21and you would dismantle a phone.
00:31:23And I did this quite a lot in Russia
00:31:25because I was in Russia quite a lot
00:31:27because of complicated reasons not involving spying.
00:31:31And you would take the phone apart
00:31:34and you'd know which buyers you had to go for.
00:31:36You would dial up London.
00:31:39You would tap in...
00:31:41You would order...
00:31:43And you were doing this in quite basic kind of code things.
00:31:46You'd order it to send your copy over
00:31:49and then you'd get all the...
00:31:52And then you'd get a message back saying it's arrived.
00:31:55And that was great.
00:31:59You couldn't really communicate with the office
00:32:01to the extent that when you were away,
00:32:03you generally had to call the office twice a day
00:32:05from a phone box to make sure nothing much had happened
00:32:09that you needed to know about.
00:32:13What's a phone box?
00:32:14Exactly, yeah.
00:32:16And then gradually things sort of started to improve.
00:32:22But it was all very analogue.
00:32:28But you kind of coped and then email came along.
00:32:31Quite tricky to make edits, I'm guessing.
00:32:34Yeah, well, I mean...
00:32:36And again, well, here we are.
00:32:38We're able to edit right up...
00:32:41I was going to say right up until publication.
00:32:43If you want to edit after publication,
00:32:45but much, much better just to send what you've got to send
00:32:48and make it all in one go.
00:32:50And sometimes you couldn't even do that
00:32:52and you had to phone in copy.
00:32:54And you'd speak to a copy taker
00:32:56who was somewhere weird in Yorkshire.
00:32:59Sorry, Yorkshire.
00:33:01I mean, Weatherby, that's right.
00:33:03And you'd be dictating your copy over.
00:33:06Oh, gosh, it was...
00:33:08What weird times.
00:33:10Why would you ever want to do that?
00:33:13So another...
00:33:14Good question.
00:33:15Another technology question.
00:33:18Is anyone still able to travel independently
00:33:21without a smartphone?
00:33:23Yeah.
00:33:24That's from Christine Dakin.
00:33:26Yeah, and I would actually recommend
00:33:28travelling without a smartphone.
00:33:30The issue is when it comes to airlines...
00:33:32Who was I flying with the other day?
00:33:34You have to pay extra to get it printed at your...
00:33:37Is there one of them?
00:33:38Sometimes you need to have your boarding pass on an app now.
00:33:41Or you pay more.
00:33:42Well, generally you can get them printed out.
00:33:44I mean, a hotel, they'll print them out for free.
00:33:46That's true.
00:33:47Generally.
00:33:48It's hard to find a printer.
00:33:49It's hard to find a printer, yeah.
00:33:51Sorry?
00:33:52It's hard to find a printer now.
00:33:53Well, no, but in Morocco, for example,
00:33:55where you have to have things printed out,
00:33:57you just go to your very nice hotel,
00:33:59which is in Casablanca,
00:34:01and they will print it all out for you,
00:34:03and off you go.
00:34:06So, a smartphone...
00:34:08Yeah, I think travelling in an analogue fashion...
00:34:12And I mean, of course, Race Across the World
00:34:14has the idea that that's what you're doing.
00:34:17But it also makes you ask people.
00:34:19And that's so important, just to ask people,
00:34:22because guess what?
00:34:25Spoiler alert.
00:34:26Not everything on the internet is true,
00:34:29and that particularly concerns travel.
00:34:32So there I was,
00:34:34part of this crucial journey across the Istrian Peninsula.
00:34:39I knew there was a train coming to this station
00:34:43in the middle of nowhere,
00:34:45because Mr Google has said,
00:34:48yep, that train has just left the station down the road.
00:34:52Pazin, I think, which is a beautiful town, by the way.
00:34:55So I thought, well, Mr Google knows.
00:34:58And then I realised, actually,
00:35:03Mr Google said,
00:35:05oh, it's arrived at the station you're waiting at,
00:35:07and it's left.
00:35:08And I thought, you're making this up, pal.
00:35:11And I wished at that stage I didn't have a smartphone,
00:35:14and instead I'd just asked the locals,
00:35:16who would have said, what, a train?
00:35:18No, we saw one ten years ago,
00:35:20but there haven't been any since then, pal.
00:35:22So therefore I was back on the road again,
00:35:24and I left with a very nice lady
00:35:26who took me through the tunnel to Rijeka.
00:35:33Sorry, oh, God, we're on lemon hitchhiking again.
00:35:36That's hitchhiking.
00:35:38Is there any locals' recommendation
00:35:40that you can remember having on your travels,
00:35:42both of you,
00:35:44that stood out above something you could ever find on Google,
00:35:47or even in a guidebook?
00:35:48Well, I can't think of anything off the top of my head specifically,
00:35:51but going out for dinner or bars,
00:35:53they're always ones I want to know.
00:35:55And I've ended up in Italy, in restaurants
00:35:58where I don't think I've ever had an English person in,
00:36:01and they're just having a family dinner,
00:36:03and they're very welcoming, and it's great.
00:36:06So yes, I think for restaurants especially,
00:36:08that's what I want local knowledge on.
00:36:10But always, always ask, including fellow tourists.
00:36:15And I get my best recommendations from asking people,
00:36:18oh, you've been here a week,
00:36:20so tell me your favourite restaurant, your favourite bar.
00:36:23And again, on Sunday, I think this guy just said,
00:36:27all right, rent a bike and cycle around the edge of the coast
00:36:31into the National Park, it's great.
00:36:33And it was, and I did, and I bumped into him later,
00:36:35and I said, thank you.
00:36:38Okay, we're having a few questions on the future of travel.
00:36:43Gemma Martin has asked,
00:36:45do you see climate change having an impact
00:36:47on how people go on holiday?
00:36:49Will popular summer holidays become popular spring or autumn holidays now?
00:36:54We are seeing that now.
00:36:56I'm absolutely not a climate scientist,
00:37:00and I know that there are lots of people who will say
00:37:06that there is a very, very strong correlation
00:37:09between what we are doing and things inexorably heating up.
00:37:13I just don't know if that is the case.
00:37:15But certainly, observably,
00:37:17we have seen a whole series of extremely hot summers in the Mediterranean.
00:37:21I was out in Rhodes seeing the effects of the wildfires last October,
00:37:26and I think people will very wisely judge,
00:37:31actually, southern Europe, July and August, why?
00:37:35And I think that's actually quite long been the case,
00:37:39but so many parts of northern Europe are beautiful then,
00:37:42and yeah, go in May, go in September,
00:37:45and by the way, the Mediterranean is much warmer than any other month of the year
00:37:50because it's been cooking all summer long.
00:37:53You're going to have a much better time.
00:37:55There are going to be fewer crowds.
00:37:57It's not going to be hot.
00:37:58I mean, last year we were hearing in Rome
00:38:01the authorities saying to tourists,
00:38:03do not go out between 11.30 in the morning and 6 in the evening.
00:38:07So, yes.
00:38:09It's quite a long time to spend in your hotel on a holiday.
00:38:12With your stuffed animals.
00:38:15And where would you recommend travelling in northern Europe then?
00:38:18Oh, well, eastern Europe, so the Baltic very much,
00:38:23Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia.
00:38:29When we are once again able to travel to Russia,
00:38:32then Kaliningrad, which is between Poland and Lithuania,
00:38:36strongly recommended.
00:38:37Of course, you can go to beautiful Helsinki and Stockholm
00:38:40and Copenhagen and Oslo, but only if you've got a billion pounds.
00:38:45A little bit more expensive.
00:38:48So, how about Jordan?
00:38:51David Robinson has asked whether you would recommend a trip there at the moment,
00:38:55bearing in mind instability in the Middle East.
00:38:58Oh, gosh, yes.
00:38:59And this is a really, really good...
00:39:01Well, not right now because it's July and it's going to be blimmin' hot there.
00:39:06I would start thinking probably second half of September.
00:39:10It would be absolutely great.
00:39:13And here's an example of what tourism can really do that's great.
00:39:18Absolute force for good.
00:39:21Creating jobs, transferring wealth from richer countries to poorer countries.
00:39:27It is a very benign thing.
00:39:32And unfortunately, countries, including Jordan, become absolutely accustomed to it.
00:39:38Of course, any nation is going to have an industry which adapts to the market,
00:39:45and the market was very much, we love Jordan, we love going to Petra,
00:39:49we love calling in in Aqaba with our cruise ships,
00:39:53and those simply aren't calling.
00:39:55So now it is a really good time to go there.
00:39:57You will do a power of good and you'll have a great time.
00:40:01So I think that's quite a good jumping-off point to ask about.
00:40:05Another question on the issue of over-tourism.
00:40:08And I know it's something that we've all discussed quite a lot recently
00:40:11and how to be a responsible tourist and where to go.
00:40:15How do you tackle that issue about making sure that you're travelling to the places
00:40:20that want tourists and will benefit from tourism?
00:40:23Yes, almost everybody everywhere in the world does want tourists, quite rightly,
00:40:27because they are the closest that any country can get to free money.
00:40:32And it's almost a kind of self-balancing thing.
00:40:38So I'm all in favour of anywhere which feels they've got too many tourists
00:40:42at the wrong time of year, whether that is the far north of Scotland
00:40:45where they've got huge problems with people turning up in their motorhomes,
00:40:49having stocked up at Tesco's in Venice,
00:40:54and they're not spending any money along the way.
00:40:56All they're doing is just clogging up the roads of this magnificent journey
00:40:59around the far north of Scotland, all the way to Venice where I was
00:41:04on the day that they brought in the tourist tax.
00:41:09I thought €5 wasn't enough, frankly.
00:41:11If you're going to say to people, come back in November,
00:41:15you need to charge them a lot more than that.
00:41:19So all these levers are there.
00:41:21And you just think, well, I mean, I happened last July,
00:41:26for complicated reasons, to find myself in Rome in July,
00:41:32walking from, I'm going to say, Termini Station to St Peter's Square.
00:41:40And it was just absolutely a crush of people.
00:41:44You're just thinking, they're not having a nice time,
00:41:46the locals aren't having a nice time, I'm not having a nice time,
00:41:49even though this is one of the most beautiful cities on earth.
00:41:51I'm coming back in February.
00:41:55How about you, Ben? Where would you go to avoid the crowds?
00:41:58Well, I've always tried to find places slightly off the tourist map.
00:42:06I think what Simon said is really important, because when it is that busy,
00:42:10nobody's having a good time. That's the problem, isn't it?
00:42:13And then you come away thinking, oh, Rome is horrible, Rome is that one.
00:42:15That's just too many of us all at once.
00:42:18In terms of an actual place, I've talked to you both about this already,
00:42:22I had a great time recently in Varna, in Bulgaria, on the Black Sea,
00:42:26which isn't on the top of everyone's go-to list,
00:42:30but it was sunny, it was affordable, just had the best time.
00:42:33And there's new flights from the UK out there.
00:42:36Very good. Just one quick thing.
00:42:39Lots of people love staying in Airbnbs.
00:42:42I like Airbnbs where you are genuinely staying in somebody's house
00:42:46and they've got a spare room.
00:42:48That was kind of the slightly hippie way that the whole concept came about,
00:42:52and I welcome that, of course.
00:42:54I welcome choice and competition and new innovations, that's all great.
00:42:58But now it's just become industrialised,
00:43:00and I think one reason people are rightly cheesed off in Barcelona
00:43:05is because whole apartment blocks have been sold to investors
00:43:10who aren't going to rent them to local people.
00:43:13They're going to pump them all out on sites such as Airbnb,
00:43:17and you're trespassing on their space,
00:43:20and it's much, much better to stay in a hotel,
00:43:22because guess what, we built this so tourists could stay in it.
00:43:25So off you go, go and stay there.
00:43:28We spoke about, when you go to a country, spending money there
00:43:32and investing in them.
00:43:34How would you pick your hotel?
00:43:36Would you avoid a chain hotel and go for something smaller and locally owned,
00:43:39or would you just pick the cheapest hotel?
00:43:42Right, oh God, don't talk to me about cheap hotels.
00:43:45I've stayed in so many, so many terrible cheap hotels.
00:43:49Tirana stands out, as does the otherwise beautiful city of Las Palmas,
00:43:56where you feel that somebody has very, very recently left this room,
00:44:02and quite possibly it was rented out by the hour previously.
00:44:08So I welcome the easy availability of checking places out.
00:44:17So I will typically go on to a site like Trivago or Booking.com or Hotels.com,
00:44:24and I will see what's available.
00:44:26I will religiously and scrupulously then go direct to the hotel.
00:44:31Some of them will actually turn back and say,
00:44:34actually, do you mind going on to Booking.com,
00:44:37because they do all the back office stuff, so we prefer that,
00:44:41but that's their choice.
00:44:44Or I will do that old funny thing of looking in my guidebook,
00:44:48seeing what they recommend, or indeed walking along.
00:44:52I did this recently in Saarbrücken in the Saarland of Germany,
00:44:56and just think, oh, well, that looks like a nice place to stay.
00:44:59I'll wander in and see if they've got a room.
00:45:01So it's all good.
00:45:04OK, I have a Cuba question for you.
00:45:07Leslie Sherwin has asked if U.S. authorities know if someone has been to Cuba.
00:45:12Good question.
00:45:13And if that's a problem.
00:45:15OK, no, they don't know unless either you tell them
00:45:19or they see in your passport that you have been to Cuba.
00:45:23So you've possibly heard of Donald Trump.
00:45:26One of his last acts before Joe Biden, who you've probably also heard of,
00:45:31replaced him in 2001,
00:45:34was to put Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
00:45:41Now, so alongside Iran, for example, and North Korea,
00:45:48which I believe probably are state sponsors of terrorism,
00:45:52Cuba I don't think is.
00:45:54Anyway, Joe Biden has chosen not to reverse this,
00:45:57but it means that anybody who says they have been to Cuba since January 2021
00:46:09or the Americans notice has been there cannot get an ESTA for travel to the U.S.
00:46:16Now, I'm not encouraging people to do anything that involves
00:46:21not telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
00:46:24But I will observe that quite a lot of people don't get a stamp from Cuba in their passport
00:46:30because the Cubans are well aware of what the rules are
00:46:34and they don't want to spoil your chances of getting into America on an ESTA.
00:46:40And then the other thing is that people maybe who did have a Cuban stamp have got a new passport
00:46:45and there's no way the Americans would know unless you told them
00:46:48because there is certainly not a data link between Havana and Washington, D.C.
00:46:54containing the evidence that Benjamin Parker has been to Cuba
00:47:01and you want to watch him when he tries to get into America.
00:47:04Not suggesting you've ever been to Cuba.
00:47:07Well, if I had, I wouldn't be telling.
00:47:09Exactly, yeah.
00:47:11Okay, we have another question here from Richard Morris.
00:47:14He is asking, how far ahead should I book flights for New Zealand?
00:47:20Or I guess any long haul destination, when would you recommend actually booking?
00:47:26Well, certainly before you get to the airport.
00:47:29Okay.
00:47:30Well, not always, but generally.
00:47:33I mean, the last time I went to Australia, oh gosh, it was COVID time.
00:47:38It was COVID time.
00:47:40And it was stupid.
00:47:44Sorry, it wasn't stupid.
00:47:45All these rules were great and we loved them and we respected them.
00:47:48But you had to have a COVID test in order to get into Australia.
00:47:54And obviously, I wasn't going to book an expensive old ticket to get to Australia
00:47:59until I'd had my COVID test because otherwise it would get very messy.
00:48:04But I think generally, for Auckland, I'd certainly probably book the day before.
00:48:13I did this recently and it actually worked out quite well for me.
00:48:16But I remember you warning me just beforehand that it could all go very wrong.
00:48:20It could.
00:48:21And we're not talking about Christmas and New Year,
00:48:23although actually I suspect that you would still find ways in.
00:48:26But if you take Auckland, for example, there's several ways you can get there,
00:48:30many ways you can get there via Asia or whatever.
00:48:32So in particular, you will find close to departure,
00:48:39three kinds of airlines will often come in with really good prices.
00:48:44Cathay Pacific, United going westbound via the US,
00:48:51and then miscellaneous Chinese airlines will come in.
00:48:55So I'd probably say the day before.
00:48:57But crucially, of course, if your sole aim is to get to Auckland,
00:49:03I would much, much rather build in a stopover somewhere along the way.
00:49:07I mean, you go out the other side of the world,
00:49:09so you can stop almost anywhere on your way there.
00:49:14So Singapore, Hong Kong, great.
00:49:18I'd say Bangkok, not quite so great.
00:49:22Seoul, really nice place to stop over.
00:49:24Tokyo, of course, absolutely marvellous.
00:49:26So yeah, generally the day before.
00:49:29Long-haul flights behave very, very differently from short-haul flights,
00:49:33whereby short-haul flights, they love putting the price up until just before you go,
00:49:40and they're not generally going to cut the prices substantially to fill their seats.
00:49:47Okay, I'm really interested to hear your answer to this one.
00:49:50Janet Thompson has asked how you would handle a reclining passenger in front of you on a flight.
00:49:56A stewardess suggested to her that she recline her seat as well.
00:50:01What's the etiquette on reclining your seat on an aeroplane?
00:50:05Okay, well, there is only one etiquette, and that is that you have to turn around.
00:50:12No, you don't need to go around there. People can imagine.
00:50:15You need to say, excuse me, I'm going to recline my seat if that's okay,
00:50:19because they've quite possibly got drinks and a screen or whatever they're trying to do,
00:50:23and they'll probably go, all right then.
00:50:25And then you do slowly and gently recline, okay.
00:50:30However, I've noticed most people don't do that,
00:50:34and suddenly you will just be aware that this seat back is coming towards you,
00:50:38but there we are. We're all people.
00:50:40And that's why it's great that budget airlines don't have reclining seats anymore.
00:50:46It removes the problem, and it removes complication as well,
00:50:50because you haven't got to have a reclining mechanism,
00:50:52so there's fewer things to break.
00:50:56Would you say anything if somebody reclined and you didn't?
00:50:59Oh, I'd probably go...
00:51:00Oh, yeah, that's about it.
00:51:01Passive-aggressive, yeah.
00:51:03I'd just sit there and fume with a smile on my face, because that's what you've got to do.
00:51:07Imagine having a confrontation with someone, and then you've got a 12-hour flight.
00:51:10No, thank you.
00:51:13If you've got a recliner button here, and you think, I'm going to recline, you can just do that.
00:51:19And you get flying backwards, yeah.
00:51:21Yeah. I mean, in a sense, we're getting into philosophy here,
00:51:26but that bit of space between there and there is technically theirs.
00:51:29You think it's yours, but it's theirs.
00:51:31Right.
00:51:32Shall we get on?
00:51:33I was going to say, there's quite a few questions I have on Traveletica,
00:51:36but I don't think we've got time for them today.
00:51:40Stephen Harding has asked whether you have any money-saving tips when you're travelling solo.
00:51:47Yeah, don't spend very much money, is my top money-saving tip.
00:51:54How do you avoid spending much money?
00:51:56Where do you find cheap accommodation?
00:51:58Where would you eat?
00:51:59What destinations would you pick?
00:52:01Okay, fine.
00:52:02Because it can be a little bit more expensive.
00:52:04So it's all about where and when, and anywhere east of what we used to call the Iron Curtain,
00:52:11before pretty much any of us were born,
00:52:14is always going to be cheaper than anywhere to the other side, to the rest of the Iron Curtain.
00:52:20And that includes East Germany and Poland and all ex-communist states to Bulgaria, indeed Moldova.
00:52:32So those are going to be cheap.
00:52:34Travelling outside school term is going to be cheap.
00:52:37But then once you're there, don't rent a car.
00:52:40Partly it's not a great thing to do environmentally.
00:52:44Partly it's dangerous because, well I'm sorry to say that road accidents remain,
00:52:51and they were in 1994 the leading cause of death for British travellers abroad.
00:52:58Partly because it's much more fun on public transport.
00:53:01You can normally get around fairly cheaply.
00:53:06Within that, if you're in Italy for example, you've got competing very good high speed trains,
00:53:11or you've got the slow old Trenitalia ones,
00:53:14which will cost tuppence and give you a nice bit of slow travel.
00:53:20Okay, and we have a question from Martin Kielik, who has asked,
00:53:25in all your years of travelling, have you ever fallen victim to a scam?
00:53:29Oh yeah.
00:53:30How have travel scams developed over the years?
00:53:33Oh they're very, very, very nasty.
00:53:39I mean most of them are kind of mild scams where you are tricked out of money
00:53:47because you don't know what the score is.
00:53:50And so that would typically be at an Indian railway station
00:53:56where you will find there's 17 people who come towards you who say,
00:54:01all the trains have been cancelled, you've got to get this car which is going your way.
00:54:06And you sort of think, well they're the locals, they know what's going on.
00:54:10So yeah, but that's a very analogue scam.
00:54:14It's online scams which are much, much worse.
00:54:16The one where you complain on a social media site like ex-formerly Twitter,
00:54:24and they will, and I do this to sort of smoke them out,
00:54:28I will send a little message to EasyJet saying,
00:54:31oh I'm flying from Gatwick, when should I check in?
00:54:34And immediately you send that, you'll get half a dozen replies from scammers
00:54:38who seem to be based in East Africa who say, send us your number by direct message.
00:54:44And when you do, they will call you on WhatsApp and they will tell you,
00:54:49oh sorry you had such a problem with your airline, we want to send you some money.
00:54:53Download this remittance app because then we'll send it to you like that.
00:54:58And then they say tap in this code, and this code happens to be sending them
00:55:02a thousand pounds in Kenyan shillings.
00:55:04But it sounds like an actual code.
00:55:06Oh I see.
00:55:07So it's an elaborate scam.
00:55:09And of course, horrible scams involving non-existent villas or villas which belong to someone else.
00:55:15So honestly, if it seems too good to be true, which is a good thing in life in general,
00:55:22if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
00:55:24Except that that's all been turned on its head by cheap airfares.
00:55:28So if you can fly to...
00:55:30Sometimes it is just that good.
00:55:31If you can fly to France, as I did a couple of weeks ago,
00:55:35for less than the air passenger duty that you know the airline is having to pay,
00:55:40that seems just wrong.
00:55:41And it must be a scam, but it isn't.
00:55:43It's just brilliant.
00:55:45Okay, so we've only got a few minutes left.
00:55:47Oh no, have we?
00:55:48So...
00:55:49Oh crikey, we have, you're right.
00:55:50I'm glad somebody's paying attention.
00:55:52We want to finish on a quick fire.
00:55:54Oh right, okay.
00:55:55So you can't think too much about these questions, we just want your instinct answer.
00:55:58Okay?
00:55:59Okay.
00:56:00Right.
00:56:01Heathrow or Gatwick?
00:56:02Gatwick, I was born there.
00:56:03Train or plane?
00:56:05Train, but only for shorter distances.
00:56:08Fair.
00:56:09Spain or Portugal?
00:56:10Portugal, I think.
00:56:11Very exotic.
00:56:12Okay.
00:56:13New places or returning to previously visited?
00:56:16New places!
00:56:17Too many places to go.
00:56:18Brexit.
00:56:19Good or bad for travel?
00:56:23You don't need to elaborate.
00:56:2498% bad.
00:56:27We'll be interested to hear about that 2%.
00:56:30Maybe I'll save that for another event.
00:56:32Solo travel or in a group?
00:56:34Solo travel, but that's because I'm so antisocial.
00:56:39Devon or Cornwall?
00:56:41Devon, I'd say.
00:56:43Okay.
00:56:44Yeah, okay.
00:56:45That was an instinct one, let's go.
00:56:47Okay, but Dorset, above both of those.
00:56:49Dorset or Cornwall.
00:56:50LNER or Avanti West Coast?
00:56:53Probably LNER, yeah.
00:56:55Depends on the fare, though.
00:56:56Okay.
00:56:57River cruise versus ocean cruise?
00:57:00River cruise, much more interesting.
00:57:03Window or aisle seat?
00:57:05Window.
00:57:06Ben?
00:57:07Correct.
00:57:08I'm sorry, I know we're running out of time.
00:57:11Window if it's daytime, aisle if it's overnight.
00:57:16Oh, I don't know if I'd go different.
00:57:18I think I might go window overnight because it's easier to sleep.
00:57:20Window every time, airpods in.
00:57:21Yeah, ruin your airpods.
00:57:23If you need to go to the toilet, though.
00:57:25Yeah.
00:57:26Anyway.
00:57:27I'd hate to be your airpods.
00:57:31Winter or summer road trip?
00:57:35Autumn or spring?
00:57:37Okay, Ben?
00:57:39Summer.
00:57:42City break or beach holiday?
00:57:45City break or mountain.
00:57:47Okay, Ben?
00:57:50Beach.
00:57:53Headphones in or out?
00:57:55Out, always.
00:57:59You don't have to answer this one, it's fine.
00:58:02Missed flight or lost luggage?
00:58:05Lost luggage, but that's a sort of trick question because I never check anything in, so I wouldn't have anything to lose.
00:58:10I think I'll take missed flight, yeah.
00:58:12Really?
00:58:13Luggage is distressing, yeah.
00:58:14Oh, no.
00:58:15I've got to write this down.
00:58:17Missed flight.
00:58:18I've actually had some quite nice experiences being stuck in a city.
00:58:21I like that.
00:58:23Crikey, sorry.
00:58:24And I've learned much from you about how airlines need to look after us, of course, so.
00:58:28Ah, but that's them missing the flight as opposed to you missing the flight.
00:58:32Oh, no, you missed the flight.
00:58:33Oh, that's a good point.
00:58:34Oh, no, that's just stupid.
00:58:35Sorry, yeah.
00:58:36Again, we might have to go into this one.
00:58:37Cancel flight.
00:58:38I always take a cancel flight.
00:58:39Cancel flight.
00:58:40Yeah, every time.
00:58:41Oh, okay.
00:58:42Yeah.
00:58:43Anyway.
00:58:44Finally, east coast or west coast?
00:58:45Oh, west coast.
00:58:47Do you know what country we're talking about?
00:58:48It doesn't matter.
00:58:49The west coast is always best.
00:58:51Interesting.
00:58:52West is best.
00:58:53Yeah.
00:58:54Yeah, I mean.
00:58:55You name me a continent, a country, I will.
00:58:57That's up to you.
00:58:58Yeah, very good.
00:58:59UK?
00:59:00Yeah.
00:59:01No offense to Lowestoft, but frankly, yeah.
00:59:04Wait a minute, Australia?
00:59:06Yeah, definitely.
00:59:07Ah.
00:59:08Okay.
00:59:09Yeah.
00:59:10Interesting.
00:59:11Interesting.
00:59:12I'm going to, over the next few days, ask you this.
00:59:13Yeah.
00:59:14Yeah, various countries, continents.
00:59:15Africa?
00:59:16I think, yeah, that would work for Africa as well, yeah.
00:59:20Okay.
00:59:21We'll try and catch them out in the next few days.
00:59:22Well, I mean, you've got Morocco, you've got fantastic Gambia, Senegal.
00:59:27Senegal, yeah.
00:59:28Yeah, absolutely.
00:59:29Namibia, South Africa.
00:59:30We were discussing Senegal today as a potential big destination in the next year or so.
00:59:36Okay.
00:59:37Great.
00:59:38Thank you so much, Simon.
00:59:39Sadly, that's all that we've got time for today.
00:59:42Thank you, Simon, and also thank you, Ben, for sharing your expertise.
00:59:45Thank you, Annabelle, for asking the very good questions.
00:59:47Absolutely.
00:59:48Stopping a flight breaking out.
00:59:49And also, thank you very much to all our viewers who sent in their questions.
00:59:54We hope to have answered as many as possible.
00:59:57For anyone who missed the beginning of this event, a recording will be available on the
01:00:02Independence website from tomorrow, and you can find out more from the Independence travel
01:00:06team on our website and via Simon's Travel Week newsletter, which appears in your inbox
01:00:11every Friday and Sunday.
01:00:13You can also sign up to Simon's weekly Ask Me Anything email for more Q and Answers with
01:00:18the Independence travel correspondent.
01:00:21Our next event is in September, when a panel of experts will be looking at the shrinking
01:00:25royal family and what's next for the British monarchy.
01:00:29So we'll hope to see you all then.