Celebrity Travel: Go Away With John Preston
A. I eat, drink and misbehave in the -- fairly -- confident assumption that no one will ever know about it.
Q. Have you traveled to a place that stood out so much that you felt compelled to incorporate it into your work?
A. My novel, "The Dig," is based on an archaeological excavation that took place in East Anglia in England in the summer of 1939. I'd never been to East Anglia before I wrote the book and I found it strangely compelling. The landscape tends to be very flat and, ostensibly, a bit dull. But you soon find that it has this mysterious, haunting quality. It's one of those places that people keep being drawn back to, often without really meaning to.
Q. Where are your favorite weekend getaways?
A. My wife and I have a house in Somerset in the West Country, so we usually head down there. It's one of the few parts of southern England that is still fairly wild and woolly. In other words, you don't feel as if someone sneaks out and carefully combs the grass every night.
Q. What are your five favorite cities?
A. Rome, Paris, London, Lisbon, Sofia (Bulgaria).
Q. Where have you traveled to that most reminded you of home?
A. Probably Ireland. It's like a rainier, grayer, even gloomier version of England.
Q. When you go away, what are some of your must-have items?
A. Plenty of books, a bottle of Scotch so that I don't have to pay exorbitant mini-bar prices and a cafetiere so I can have a decent cup of coffee the next morning.
Q. What would be your dream trip?
A. I've always had a hankering to go to Antarctica, although I have a suspicion that it might be one of those places that's best visited in the imagination.
Q. What is your best and/or worst vacation memory?
A. Four years ago, my wife and I went skiing with our two children who, at the time, were six and five. I'd never skied before and thought I had better take lessons. On our first day, I was skiing along a completely flat piece of ground at around walking pace when I suddenly fell over, snapped the main tendon in my left arm and spent the rest of the week in an Austrian hospital ward with two of the world's loudest snorers on either side of me.
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(Jae-Ha Kim is a New York Times bestselling author and travel writer. You can respond to this column by visiting her website at www.jaehakim.com. You may also follow "Go Away With..." on Twitter at @GoAwayWithJae where Jae-Ha Kim welcomes your questions and comments.)
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