Celebrity Travel: Go Away With Allison Amend

Author Allison Amend took her first trip as a baby, studied for a year at a Barcelona high school and came home speaking Catalan and then -- after graduating from Stanford University -- moved to Lyon (France) on a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship. Now based out of New York City, Amend, 41, counts the Big Apple, Chicago and Barcelona as three of her favorite cities. Her latest book is "Enchanted Islands" (Nan A. Talese, $26.95). To connect with the author, check out her Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/allisonamendauthor).

Q. What is your favorite vacation destination?

A. I visit my brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece in Honolulu as often as time and pocketbook allow. We've explored Oahu, Maui and the Big Island. The islands' raw, rough beauty never ceases to amaze. Hawaii is a nation unto itself. It is tremendous fun to be a foreigner in your own country and, since my family is kama»aina, we get treated like ohana.

Q. What untapped destination should people know about?

A. All the tiny museums in your town. Every city has them -- the niche museums that sound bizarre and uninteresting. Often they prove fascinating. I spent an hour at a barbed wire exhibit once. It was an oddly compelling, beautiful and spiny history of the American West.

Two friends and I decided to see every museum in New York City. We blogged about it (https://thisisareallyseriouspiece.wordpress.com/about/). There were some duds, obviously, but some delightful finds, like the Hispanic Society, Torah Animal World and the Jazz Museum of Harlem. So, I would encourage people to explore their own backyards!

Q. What was the first trip you took as a child? And did you love it ... or not so much?

A. I am told I went to Tulsa with my parents at six weeks. Unsurprisingly, I don't remember it. But, my first novel was about Oklahoma, so maybe it registered more than I thought.

Q. What's the most important thing you've learned from your travels?

A. This from my father: "You will get there eventually. There's no one still wandering around in Portugal who got lost there in 1987."

Q. Have you traveled to a place that stood out so much that you felt compelled to incorporate it into your work?

A. The Galapagos Islands are the subject of my new novel. I first went there in 1992 and was fascinated. Everyone is. They are incredible and degrading fast, so get there as soon as possible. I love them for the reason everyone who has been there sings about them -- the crazy, impossible, implausible wildlife, the diversity of the islands, the strange human history. ... Going back more recently and staying with natives, I began to have a greater understanding of the complicated politics surrounding these jewels and understand why the residents feel themselves to be their stewards.

Q. Where have you traveled to that most reminded you of home?

A. This will sound strange, but I felt very at home in Nepal, which is not the question you are asking. I was there with my brother, who speaks Nepali, so that might have helped us settle in. I also might have been influenced by the altitude or the chhaang (fermented millet). We took a trek in Langtang and spent hours chatting with people along the paths and in the tea houses. I felt as though I could have stayed forever, except for the whole no running water thing.

Q. Where would you like to go that you have never been to before?

A. I am dying to visit Angkor Wat in Cambodia, as well as Australia and New Zealand. But I'm pretty much interested in going anywhere I haven't been and most places I have. I flew on 46 planes last year and I'm not a consultant or an investment banker, so I must love traveling.

Q. When you go away, what are some of your must-have items?

A. I believe very strongly that checking luggage is for the weak. That said, I stuff that carry-on to the gills. I always have an entire pharmacy. I also always bring a headlamp. My traveling companions find this to be an unending fountain of ridicule, but it invariably comes in handy and they end up jealous. Ziploc bags are indispensable. And food. I always have food and water. Way too much reading material, usually in the form of New Yorker magazines I've neglected. And invariably something that I take out of the suitcase and ask myself, "Why did I bring this?"

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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.)