Q1: How does your normal day begin?
Most flights are early morning. I get to the airport early and usually breakfast there, and snatch sleep on the aircraft. Most trips are short, two to three days, so I will often visit two countries in the same week. The further away, the longer I stay. Once I based myself in Sydney for a few months and used it to access destinations I would not otherwise get to see.
Q2: What are your biggest daily challenges?
Straddling time zones has its challenges, but I tend to survive on snatches of sleep. An hour in the afternoon, where possible, is one of nature’s kindest inventions.
Q3: What do you love most about your job? I always loved travel, even the messy bits of travel, airport delays and reservation mix-ups, which happen surprisingly frequently as I rarely handle my own bookings. This was true in my career as a sports writer and news journalist before I became a full-time travel editor in 2002. Even places that do not seem attractive at first sight intrigue me. Who likes this unremarkable place and why? People go to the strangest place son holidays.
Q4: What do you do to relax?
I devour a book a day when I am at full pace. Most of my movie watching is done on aircraft. I rarely watch television and am clueless when people start talking about it.
Q5: Favourite staycation destination in Ireland and why?
West Clare is my happy place of many happy places on our amazing island. When the sun descends over the Atlantic those limestone flags of the Burren turn into most glorious pink I have never found elsewhere on the planet. A dark creamy pint and a few verses of the Boys of Barr na Sráide always await in Friel’s of Miltown Malbay.
Q6: Favourite holiday destination worldwide? Quick answer “my next trip.” I list India because of its chaos, its diversity and ability to keep its uniqueness in a homogenous world. Even if there is a McDonalds on the street, there is a Brahmin cow wandering down the middle of the road to remind you you are somewhere special. I am unexpectedly attracted to places that remind me of home, Oregon, Tasmania, New Zealand, and the wonderful Faroe Islands.
Q7: Favourite business motto?
It is not the foul-up that counts, it is the recovery.
Q8: Advice for young business entrepreneurs
Don’t work, just find a pastime that you get paid to do
