Sara Davies

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1:26Hello and welcome to the Travel Diaries podcast. I'm your host Holly Rubenstein and here each week I speak to a very special guest about the seven chapters of their life's travel diaries. From the first place they fell in love with and their all-time favorite destination to their worst travel experience and what's at the top of their travel bucket list. Today I am so excited to be joined by the entrepreneur, TV personality, and crafting queen, Sarah Davis. Sarah founded Crafters Companion while she was still at university, turning an idea into an international, multi-million pound crafting business.

2:08She went on to become the youngest ever female investor on BBC One's Dragon's Den. She was awarded an MBE for services to the economy and swapped the boardroom for the ballroom on Strictly Come Dancing. We recorded this episode a few weeks ago in central London and Sarah was just such a lovely person to spend time with, with a really infectious enthusiasm for travel, which you'll hear. And her travel diaries are so full of adventure. We're heading from the beaches of the Scottish Islands in a camper van built by her dad and trekking on the Great Wall of China to the Northern Lights in Norway and the back streets of Kyoto.

2:46Oh and by the way when I mention the beautiful Santa Fe I mean that it's in New Mexico. Right let's buckle up and get started. I know you're going to love this one. Here's Sarah.

2:59Sarah welcome to the Travel Diaries. It is so lovely to meet you. How are you? Do you know, I'm tremendous and I've been looking forward to doing this for so long, I can't even begin to tell you. That is, oh, that's so nice. I really feel as though travel has been such a kind of central part of all the key stages of your life. Do you know, I'd never thought about it like that, but yes, you're not wrong. You're not wrong. Yeah. And you're new to the podcasting world as well with your, with your fab podcast with your sister. Tell us quickly about that. Well, I'm not going to lie. So I've come along today in the hope of learning a little bit more on how the experts do it.

3:38Yeah, me and my sister started a podcast and it's for small business owners. So we didn't just want to do a podcast. We wanted to build a community somewhere where small business owners could really be heard. And it's just me and our Helen. And we just sit and yabber on every week about, you know, how lonely it is running your own business and how we can be there for each other. But the reception's just been amazing. So I'm loving doing it. And I'm quite getting used to this sitting on a couch and chit chatting for a living. I'm like, this is great. And I read that the community around your podcast is really strong.

4:09There's like people are sharing their own SME kind of tips. And that's so nice because like you say, going into business can be lonely. Oh, it is. And it's lovely because we do our main episode on a Tuesday. But then every Thursday we answer Q &A from our community. Oh, nice. And what generally happens is we'll put a call out for questions in the community. and people will ask questions. But by the time we answer them two days later, there'll be 30, 40 responses from the rest of the community all wanting to help and support. So quite often what we're doing is just debating what the best bits of advice have been.

4:44And it's just been a really supportive place for everyone. That's so, so lovely. I mean, I feel like everybody gets that from you, that you're, are you a nurturer? I am. And do you know what I've realised probably in the last few years? what fills my cup up the most is giving. The more you can give of yourself, and I see when that has an impact on people, the happier it makes me. You know, it gets to a point in your life whereby you've got to look at what really brings you that happiness. And it's definitely that, seeing where I can have an impact on other people and really make a difference in their life, I suppose.

5:20And for business people, I've got 20 odd years of experience and I am happy to wear my heart on the sleeve to be really vulnerable and tell everybody as it is, the what's and all, and where things have gone wrong as well as right. And if that can help somebody else on their business journey, then that's brilliant. So the name of the podcast is? It's Mind Your Business with Sarah and Helen. Fab, fab guys. You've got to tune in. You've got to tune in. And now we switch to travel. Oh, yes. And we journey through the seven chapters of your life's travel diaries. We start at chapter one, and that's your earliest childhood travel memory.

5:49So, to be really honest, we didn't have an awful lot of money as a family when we were younger. My mum and dad had started their own business, and my dad's business was he was a man with a van. And actually he was a man with a van who had a couple of friends with a couple of other vans as well. So my dad always used to have maybe three or four vans within his fleet, as it was. And when one of them would get to the end of their life, what he'd do is, because he was an engineer, my dad as well, he'd tinker with it over the Christmas period. He would get a caravan, generally from the tip, and he'd take all the bits out of the caravan and fit it into a van and build a homemade camper van.

6:24Wow. So we could never really afford proper holidays when we were kids growing up. But we used to camper van all over the country, especially right around the Yorkshire Dales and over to the Lake District. And we used to go up into Scotland sometimes. So my earliest memories are always sleeping in an old transit van that had had holes cut out and windows fitted in from caravans. It's like Pimp My Ride. It was very much Pimp My Ride. But what would inevitably happen is we would fall in love with that camper van. But my dad would get talking to somebody, you know, and someone would end up wanting to buy it.

6:55And, oh, I can make a bit of profit on that kid. So he'd sell the camper van and then build a whole new one the next winter. So he obviously loved it. It was like a project. He did. And what was really lovely is so during lockdown, we couldn't go and see my parents. And I'm really worried about them. And so they're only 15 minutes away from me. Obviously, we weren't able to be around them. Yeah. So I bought an old van. I bought a five-year-old van and I had it delivered to my mum and dad's house and we got we paid 500 pounds for an old caravan from the tip had that delivered and my dad spent the whole summer tinkering building me and my boys a camper van oh my god what an amazing lockdown project and so where have you gone with your boys oh we have been all over I have to say my favorite part is we've been right up around the top of Scotland so over onto the Isle of Skye and then down onto Mull we found this amazing little campsite right tucked on the corner of Mull with white beaches and it was just it was called Fidden Farm and it was the most glorious place and then when we went up to Skye we went and explored the fairy pools and just all along that course there the walks were incredible the beaches were insane and you're just just at one with nature.

8:08Amazing I mean I guess That's the amazing thing about a camper van is that you can drive into and then stay looking out at views that you couldn't get anywhere else. Oh, it's insane. I remember when we went to Mull, when I was in Mull, we arrived on this campsite and my dad's got the camper van that he built for him and my mum, which is about 20 years now. He built a really nice one when he retired 20 years ago. The one that he built for me and the boys, and I say me and the boys because my husband won't camp with us. So he will not... He's not into that. So my husband won't come. So it's only me and the two boys.

8:43And then my sister and her husband. And they had one little girl at the time, my little niece, Gracie. So they had their camper van. But we arrived at the campsite about four o 'clock at night. So we were just parked in the field. Didn't realise just quite what was over the dunes and how beautiful it was. Well, of course, we went exploring on the evening, spotted it, thought it was absolutely amazing. But all the top spots were all taken along the ridgeline of these beautiful sand dunes. well all I remember is my mum coming knocking me up on the van the next morning somebody had left early left a space she'd sent me dad to go and lie on the floor in the space so nobody could drive into this place she's going come on pet get your van up there get your van we've parked the on and we've got all the stuff we've got stuff laid all over she's like get the van up there before someone gets the spot and and I have to say of all the views in my life to wake up the next morning and actually it was on the evening as the sun was setting we were sitting looking over the sea We had those special little lights, you know, where they've got the solar power in where it collects the light during the day and then it just kind of glows like a jewel on an evening.

9:43Sitting playing Uno, looking out over the sea with the kids at nine o 'clock at night. It was absolutely insane. That sounds absolutely magical. And I guess, you know, when you're an entrepreneur and you've accumulated a lot of wealth, people might assume that you would only do the most fancy holidays. and it's quite nice to hear that your kids are getting to kind of experience the same holidays that you had as a child. Do you know what it is and I really struggle with this kind of balance in life. I genuinely believe that I am the person I am as a result of the childhood and the upbringing that I had and I want to give my kids the same but then we've been successful in life and we can afford to go on beautiful luxury holidays and stay in five-star resort but I don't want them to think that that's all there is to life.

10:35And so trying to find that balance, and I have to say, we do go to beautiful five-star resorts. And, you know, that's wonderful. It's not the same level of enjoyment as what I feel in that camper van. And it's not only that, I always laugh and joke because my sister, she's got a lovely top of the range VW pop top, really fancy, paid a fortune for it. And I'm so proud of the fact that my van was five grand and my dad gave himself a 10 grand budget and he came in under budget. So my 14 ,000 pound camper van, which is fully solar powered, so I can go off the grid. We could survive for days off the grid just with the solar power.

11:13I mean, it's always breaking down and there's stuff going wrong with it. We had to put a new engine in it last year and whatnot, but it's the camper van that my dad built that I'm going to keep running until the end of its days. And you can't put a price on the hours and the days and the weeks of enjoyment we've had out of it. Wonderful. Can you give us a little kind of picture of what it's like inside? Yes. So it's blue from the outside. And then inside we've got, so along the back is where my dad's built me a double bed. So it seats on an afternoon or whatever. And then the bed pulls out and makes into the bed on an evening.

11:45We have a little potter potty that pulls out. I haven't got a fancy shower or anything like that, but we have a loo. It's for emergencies only. So I've trained the boys. Other than that, you open the door and you dip out the back of the van in the night. And then how he's done it is, I remember him driving all the way to Wales to get these special seats a couple of years ago so the front seats all rotate around a full 180 degrees and then we've got another little three-seater inside the van so as you open the van door up when I've got all my seats turned around you can seat about six of us and he's built me a beautiful he upcycled an old piece of wood from like an old wood tabletop made this lovely sweeping tabletop so the whole family I mean I went camping with a few of the few of the kids from school and their mams and I had so there was three mams and eight kids all sitting around in the camper van playing cards um a couple of weeks ago over the summer and then and then I had me burner on and I do me I had the pancake pan I was doing pancakes of course because I've got all the solar power I had my NutriBullet in there I'm doing the kids milkshakes it's like the cool van so the other parents were all intense and the kids were all like oh we just want to be in Sarah's van.

12:54It's really cool in there. God, your dad sounds amazing. Oh, he's brilliant. He's absolutely brilliant. Oh, wonderful. Where did you go for this trip? We just went down to the Yorkshire Dales to the Dolby Forest. Oh, I don't know that area at all. Oh, it was absolutely fabulous. We stayed in a lovely little campsite just outside of Dolby Forest and then the kids could go off cycling in the forest. There was a lovely big go ape there as well. But to be honest, it was just lovely. It's nice because it's only about an hour and a half from us. So it's amazing what you've got on your doorstep without having to go too far if you can remember any others that stand out i know a lot of my listeners are really into camping are there any other favorite campsites absolutely right my absolute favorite in the country is ray castle so it's on the side of windermere and you come in you come down the side of windermere and it's a proper rustic beauty unspoiled you know there's no clubhouse or anything like that there it really is they have an authentic little pizza oven there and they make pizzas on an evening you can borrow a paddleboard or a canoe and take them out on the lake we go wild swimming the cycling around there is insane but it's a national trust property ray castle so you can go up to the castle there's loads to do there oh that's so nice so you've got a mixture of kind of outdoorsyness and culture exactly that and then if you do like it up in the lakes we really love uh at the top of ullswater just near Apule Bridge.

14:14I can't remember the name of the campsite, but it's, there is Park Foots, the main campsite, and it's the little campsite just up the way from that one. And it's got the Ullswater Wake and Surf in there as well. So if you want to go, if you love to go wake surfing, or you want to learn how to go and do that on the lake, it's absolutely incredible. The Lake District is just amazing for those, again, those views. Yes. And you could be anywhere. You know, we've had a few just day trips over there, go to the same campsite and just hanging out for the evening. Absolutely wonderful. Fab, amazing recommendations I'll put all of these in the episode show notes so you can check them out Well I'll give you the names of those ones up in Scotland as well So it's Fidden Farm, the one that's on Mull and then on Sky it was the one right next to the fairy pools but if you look it up if you see where the fairy pools are on the map in Sky basically continue on along that road and there's a campsite at the end of that road One of the best bits of Scotland for sure Hands down Magical Well we move on to chapter 2 and that is the first place that you fell in love with.

15:14Is it all right to pick somewhere that I really feel like I've only fallen in love with the last seven or eight years of my life? Yeah, cool. It wasn't when I was a kid, but I did absolutely fall in love the first time I went. So I went to Tromsø in Norway and I went with a lovely little travel agent lost in Norway and they organised all off the beaten track stuff. So we went to this amazing, it was like a family run business who did the dog sledding and then we went to this tiny little island off the north coast called Someroy where you could go and see the Northern Lights not that we managed to see the Northern Lights but we went on like a Northern Lights trip and I felt like we got to see the authentic side of Norway and I really fell in love with the culture so much so the following summer we went out with the same tour we went to see Bergen and have a look around Bergen and then last year and this was the absolute highlight we went to Alta.

16:05Now a lot of people don't realise, people go to Tromsø thinking that's the best place to see the Northern Lights because it's right up into the Arctic Circle, it's so far north and it's right on that Aurora Belt. However the precipitation's really bad whereas you go up the coast so it's a five-hour drive up to Alta or it's a little hopper flight and it's two and a half times less precipitation. Now we stayed in Alta and this bear in mind I'd been out three or four times trying to see the northern lights never managed to see them first night in altar you're just staring out the window and it is insane they were just dancing all colors in the sky and i remember by our third night you know we'd be sitting in the bar in the hotel on an evening and they'd come around and say just to let you know the northern lights are on show outside we'd say yeah yeah we'll just finish our coffee and then really it was sucked it was so much that you yeah wow and while we were there the hotel we stayed at is one of the ones where they build an ice hotel every year so they start from scratch which I just found this whole process fascinating they start from scratch in November every year build the ice hotel and it's got the main hotel and the ice hotels out in the garden I suppose and but they have like 18 rooms or so in the ice hotel now my husband would not agree to go and sleep in the ice hotel but the sculptures they bring in the top ice sculptors from all around the world to sculpt the bedrooms there was one bedroom where they had a giant dragon flying through the wall it was all beautifully lit up and I was like that's a bit of me that room there it was just it was like the perfect dragon bedroom perfect dragon bedroom but we went whale watching we went and we did husky sledding again there it was absolutely unlike anything else I've experienced wow I'm not I'm not familiar with that you need to go oh it It sounds magical.

17:54And you can do all those like wintry adventures. Yep. What's the best time of year to go? What time did you go? Brilliant. So they say the best time is between November and April. Okay. We went just as the kids broke up from school last year. So we went kind of middle of December. Yeah. And the Ice Hotel was just opening that weekend that we were there. Must have been so Christmassy, was it? Oh, it was amazing. But it opens and it runs right through till April. Of course, when it melts. That must be quite a weird sight. But I loved it so much. I think I'm going to go back and take my mum there this year.

18:27Really? And there are so many things. It's one of those places of total unspoilt beauty. But I remember being on, we went whale watching one day on one of the boats. But it is so hidden and unspoiled. It's not commercialised yet. Give it a few years and I'm sure everybody will know it and it'll start becoming way more commercial. I guess if there aren't direct flights there at the moment, that in itself means that it's not too crowded. did well if it's helpful to know we flew from our local airport into amsterdam amsterdam to oslo and then we went from oslo up to alter so it was quite about a 12-hour journey totally worth it or you can i noticed when i was in the airport they had flights in from either tromso or oslo so if you can get a flight to oslo you can easily get a connecting flight or even tromso and then you can take the little hopper flight up to alter today's episode is supported by una italian hospitality.

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21:07But I bumped into one lady on the whale watching boat and she said she'd done years of research and she was obsessed with orca whales. And she said apparently this place in Altaire was the best place in the world to see these orca whales because they come just the right temperature, the water temperature, the weather. And so she'd literally flown in from I think it was Canada to just come to see the orca whales there. And did you get to see some? We saw the arca whales, we saw the humpback whales, and it was just, and there wasn't loads and loads and loads of touristy boats. There was maybe two or three touristy boats in the whole bay.

21:43Whereas, I must admit, as much as I love tramso, that's what made me fall in love with Norway, it's very touristy now. So, you know, you go into the bay and there'll be, you know, 50, 60 boats all doing whale watching tours. Whereas up in Alta, it was really, it was just that unspoiled beauty type of thing. And what's, if you were to kind of paint a picture of it, is it a town or is it wild wilderness? So there is a town there. So I remember somebody saying to me, I live up in the northeast, and they said, Alta is the same size as Hartlepool, which is basically a small town. Right. So you're talking small town, but they do have, you can go for little tours around the town if you want, but it's got the beautiful bay in there and then the nice, I don't want to say resorts, because resort doesn't feel like the right word but where we went and stayed at the ice hotel and by the way all of this is on my instagram i saved like a little highlights reel wherever i go traveling anywhere i always save a little highlights reel on my instagram so if you go to my instagram so it's just sarah davy cc you'll see all the little adventures i've been along my highlight reels along the top and and then i always tag you know the hotels that i stayed in or if i found a nice cafe or there'll be my camping ones will be in there with the names of the campsites i couldn't remember all that sort of stuff so yes but it was what was really nice is when we came down like the hotel that we stayed at was just beautifully insane but it's it's like a little resort so and when i'm saying you know they will do snowshoeing or you can go snowmobiling from the resort as well so activities and things to do were you tempted to buy the ice hotel it to me i just i can't understand i can't understand how it could be conducive to comfort so when i saw it and you go and have a little look in the rooms and i would definitely recommend go and have a look on my Instagram you see the pictures of them I mean the sculpting amazing amazing whether I want to be that cold I'm not sure is it freezing yeah oh yeah it's well below freezing yeah yeah but you do have all of the reindeer hides and everything that you're sleeping in so you've got your sleeping bag and then you're under the reindeer hides what they said gets most people is people will go for the evening get into their bed settle in no problem you wake up in the night you need a wee and when you wake up in the night you need a wee you bring yourself into the main hotel to go to the toilet and then quite often people won't go back outside into the cold so they said everyone starts there but the only people who seem to wake up there the next morning are the ones that didn't wake up for a wee in the night that's so funny but we had the best of both worlds so we stayed at the main hotel and the rooms were beautifully luxurious you had floor to ceiling windows so that you could look out we literally laid in bed watching the northern lights but then we got to go and see the ice hotel and have a look around and they have like a beautiful bar the whole bar had been built as like it's like a boat it's as though it was coming out of the wall and you were on this ice ship and then they even the glasses were made out of ice so we were having little shots of i don't know what but it was amazing in little glasses made of ice so fun because it's so far removed from like the average travel experience isn't it totally and our next chapter is chapter three which is the place where you learn the most about yourself now I've seen online that actually Scandinavia has kind of given you a perspective shift in the way that they live their life in general.

24:58Do you know, you have done your research, haven't you? It really has. So when I went on the trips to Scandinavia and really mainly Norway, although I've done quite a bit of business in Denmark. So I've been to Denmark a few times as well. And we've been over to Lapland in Finland and whatnot. So I would say I've been quite a bit. but every time we've gone we've done the guided tours and I find the the people who generally run those and instead of being on like a one-to-many guided tour we've had a private one for the family because I was really conscious of I wanted the boys to understand the culture and I know that sitting on a tour bus having somebody talk at them for two hours really isn't going to sell it but somebody who's from that area walking them around and explaining to them all the different areas might interest them in the culture a little bit and it certainly interested me and I found it fascinating just learning more about their way of life you know it's there is so much so much provision there from the state as well and actually so in the summer just the summer just gone my mom and dad was on their bucket list to see the Norwegian fjords so we went oh well I've got the perfect trip for you oh tell me tell me so I took my mom and dad on a P &O cruise around the fjords this summer so we got on at Southampton yeah beautiful big ship the Iona so we had a wonderful sea view cabin we came up and every day you would tour into another fjord spend it so we would we would be arriving at the four the fjord around five six o 'clock on the morning so you could get up sit on your balcony watch the views as you pulled into the fjord and then once you were in there and you didn't have the day looking around and then we would on the evening we would get into one of the nice hot tubs on the deck me and my mom nice pina collada looking out as you pulled out of the fjord for a few hours and that was just I mean it's proper bucket listy stuff and we had the most amazing time and just it was what I loved is I've never been into cruising so we've done the Disney cruise with the kids when they were little but that was it and it's amazing how multiple generations can find something for everybody yeah you know it was so many families I bumped into where it was two or three generations all travelling together and something for everybody.

27:13And I just, I love that. You know, me and my mum had a couple of nights just us, went to see a show. My dad would take the kids up and play deck games and, you know, coats on the deck or whatever. Or we'd go and see something together. We'd all go for a beautiful dinner every night. So I really, really took to cruising, I have to say. So do you think you'll do more now? I am absolutely up for doing more. And my mum was like, yes, we could come with you on Marpet. Do a bit of childcare. Exactly. Who needs a kids club when you've got mum and dad? Exactly. Oh, where would be like on your list, do you think?

27:45I mean, I have to say I would love to go around the Caribbean. Oh, yeah. We've got a little taste. We did the Disney cruise a few years ago. We did it around the Caribbean, but it was only a couple of days. Yeah. I would love to see some of the Caribbean islands. And it's just like so nice to be able to, you may not want to spend a whole week on each island, but a different flavour of each one is really, really nice. Perfect. Yeah, yeah. Oh, lovely. So what was the destination where you learned the most about yourself? Which one did you pick? Actually, Japan. Oh, interesting. So I remember a few years ago, my sister always talked about her friend.

28:24And it was a friend from, I think it was, it wasn't even uni. It was after she'd been at uni. She'd met this girl at work. And even though this girl was in her early 20s, she still holidayed with her mum and dad every year. and the reason her and her husband would always go on holiday is every summer their parents would take them on a proper bucket list something amazing holiday and I remember looking and thinking oh my god if my kids are still prepared to come on holiday with me when they're in their early 20s if this is what I need to do this is what I'm going to do whatever it takes especially having boys um so I said to my husband I said right we maybe don't need to do it every year now but maybe it's every couple of years let's do a big bucket list and he said well what's first on your bucket list and I said I'm desperate to take them to Japan the kids were obsessed with the bullet train you know they've watched so many YouTube videos on it they wanted to go and experience the bullet train so my travel counsellor Kathy this is really interesting I've always booked all of my holidays with travel counsellors my travel counsellor was my French teacher when I was at school so she'd started off a career as a an air hostess then she trained to become a teacher and then she'd given up teaching because she loved travel so much that she started her own travel business with travel counsellors.

29:33So she's been booking all of my holidays for 10 years. And every itinerary I'm talking to you about, it's because she's meticulously spent hours and hours of her life planning exactly what that trip's going to be and how it's going to be perfect. And she's a big expert on Japan. So she really just can't, you know, beat that human touch, you know, like that somebody really thinking about you and your needs. Chat GPT can only tell you what the internet says. Yeah. You know, she's got this experience of having sent hundreds of families on holidays there. And it was the little things like when we stayed in Tokyo, she booked us the perfect hotel.

30:10She knew what experiences I wanted to give the kids. I wanted them to experience, you know, travel around the city and what that was going to be like. And so she booked us into the hotel right next to the, it's the busiest train station in the world. So Shinjuku station. so the kids learned to ride the metro you know in Japanese and then we went down to Kyoto oh my word there are no words for how what a lasting impact that city had on me and the thing I just remember one day getting a little bit lost wandering around these back streets and then just being amazed at the culture right in front of you and you know the little windy streets and there'll be a temple at the end of every street and then there's these gorgeous little shops and all these handmade artisans and even the boys were blown away and then you know I always think my kids are quite picky food wise yet we were taking them for teppanyaki every night I was loving it because my husband really opening their eyes oh it was everything unbelievable and he would be always be in charge of researching you know find us a really nice restaurant we can go to so we'd be there looking at all the google reviews and it'd be like right it's down this street and it's on the left hand side but they've only got 16 covers so you have to get there really early and we're just going to have to queue for as long as it takes to get in and then you know it would be the husband will be serving up and the wife's in the back cooking the dinner and you're basically just cooking whatever it is you're eating whatever it is they've been cooking that day and you know and it's just that experience was off the child insane amazing amazing and did the children come back feeling like they had learned about themselves do you know so much I just think the greatest gift we can kind of give the kids is opening their eyes to other cultures and I just think they saw such an immensely different culture and they're so respectful and they're so kind and welcoming the Japanese and what I loved is you know we yes that was the busiest train station in the world and you know the hustle and bustle of getting onto the train but there's no crime there you're not worried about pig pot you know all of this it's a totally different experience than taking them to other big cities yeah I guess in a way then it is a very although it's hectic Tokyo I mean Japan as a whole is actually I imagine I haven't been a very child friendly very destination because you know it really was you feel safe we did yeah yeah and the kids loved it so much I'm I'm desperate to go back because I feel like I only saw a tiny bit yeah you know we did we had 10 days there so we did obviously the main touristy stuff we went and and did the Tokyo Sky Tower and you know we wanted to go and they want to of course the kids wanted to go to Disney and Universal Studios while we're there but but I really want they love the the bullet train so I really wanted to take them back and go and see more of Japan yeah I just had a guest on the podcast who told me that their all-time favorite destination is Okinawa which is I have to make a note of this yeah so it's do you know it no so it's um a couple of hours from Osaka right and it's like the Hawaii of Japan so it's where um the Japanese go for a kind of beachy coastal holiday and apparently the landscape's amazing and it's a blue zone so it's one of those parts of the world there are uh I think seven blue zones in the world where the population has a disproportionately long life.

33:42It's all about longevity. And actually, I had the guy who did all the research, Dan Buettner, was a guest on the podcast. It's really interesting. And Okinawa is a place where the average age is over 100. And so they analyze why have they lived so long there. And actually, a lot of it is to do with this principle that they only eat until they're 80 % full, along with many other things such as community and the landscape and eating organically and all these other kind of interesting factors. The other blue zones are in Costa Rica, Sardinia. There's one in the West Coast in a part of California.

34:16It's quite interesting. There's a Netflix documentary about it. Oh, never mind the documentary. I want to know where this place in Japan is. That's my new book. Yeah, Okinawa. Okinawa, right. I'm making a note of that. It looks really, really, really cool. And I guess if you're going all that way, like there's so many contrasting parts of japan aren't there and actually also um my episode last week with uh catelyn moran i love catelyn i love catelyn she was phenomenal and her hidden gem was also in japan the japanese alps so she went up a couple of hours i think out of the city into the mountains um to a ryokan where they have the those monkeys that have the red faces oh yes yeah and they kind of all in the snow people go skiing snowshoeing but mainly she said they just sat in like the beautiful steaming baths and looked out at the japanese alps so yeah there's so much more to see in japan isn't there oh right japan's going back on the list for next year like it was there in the back of my mind we've just parachuted it right to the top Well, if you go, then let me know.

35:22We'll all be following along on Instagram and see how it goes. We can plan the trip together. I'm going to ring Catelyn, that's for sure. So chapter four is a big one, your all-time favourite destination. Which is your all-time fave today? So I'm one of them people that's as changeable as the weather. So right now, you're going to get China. Oh, amazing. And you're going to get China because last week I was in China. So it's because it's right at the front of my mind. But last week I was trekking the Great Wall of China. Last week you were trekking the Great Wall of China? This time last week I was halfway up a mountain trekking along the Great Wall of China.

36:01No way. Oh my goodness. It was great. I came in, your camera guy said to me, he said, oh, have you been anywhere nice recently? I said, oh, last week I was in China trekking the Great Wall of China and I was in Tuscany at the weekend for a wedding. His mouth hit the floor. He was like, oh, we don't get that very often. I've had a busy week. but I have to say it was just breathtakingly beautiful and no postcard no documentary no photos can ever do it justice I feel like it's something you need to see and experience in your life yeah yeah a wonder of the world well I totally understand I had not appreciated you know it's 23 ,000 kilometers long it's just it is unfathomable I mean I can't understand how they built it I can't understand like it's it's one of those things I guess for like the pyramids where you're just like how how how yep but it's I mean it is the the terrain at times we were on all fours because it's so steep climbing up and then climbing down so what portion were you in like where did you arrive we went and did a bit around the Beijing area and it's actually I went with a charity group called Copperfield so I'm an ambassador for a charity called Copperfield which is all about encouraging young girls especially but all girls to check their chest and know they're normal it was founded by an incredible founder who was diagnosed with breast cancer in her early 20s and dedicated the rest of her life to trying to make sure that you know early detection is because it's prevention you know it's curable then and so what we find is they have over a thousand they do a big trek like this every year they have over a thousand people apply for 120 spaces and they take 120 people and all these people are either in remission from having breast cancer or they are dealing with a terminal diagnosis and this is a bucket list trip or they are dealing with grief from having lost you know a sister or a daughter or a wife I had a husband in my team who supported his wife through terminal breast cancer and so everybody's got their own story but there's just something about trekking along so you're side by side with somebody instead of being face to face like we are now chatting to them you're side by side and and it's a struggle the climb is a challenge you know I did a trek for them a couple of years earlier in the Himalayas in India as well and so I understood what the dynamic was so people you know they've been through a really really rubbish few times few years of their life and this has been the thing that's kept them focused on I'm going to get better and I'm going to go and do an amazing trek and raise thousands of pounds for this charity and but it's also a voyage of self-discovery and healing and I go as a team captain they always take four celebrity team captains and they have us captain a team and we're there to bring the energy you know and to look after people on that journey and the stories were just harrowing but you know to sit with them on the last evening and ask everybody what's been their most memorable time from the week and the laughter they've had the happy times it's kind of reminded them what they're living for and the friendships that were formed it was just it was the most unbelievable experience but it's that unbelievable experience in an incredible setting yeah it shows how healing travel can be yes and you hear that so often yeah you know you hear that from people in all walks of life oh yeah but especially the people i've seen doing these treks and i said it was the same we trekked the himalayas a few years ago and actually when we went and trekked the himalayas it was amazing because um we flew into delhi and took a sleeper train well that was an experience let me tell you i remember someone saying to me the best advice i can give you is take a face mask and coat the inside of your face masks with with vic i said oh well what for and they're like well because that's the only way you're going to cope with the smell when you walk past the toilets or whatever on this and and and you were basically you're sleeping in bunk beds with you know indian people you've never met got no idea but you just all get in these bunk beds and then go to sleep and wake up eight hours later up in the mountains did you go to sleep and wake up eight hours later I was shattered.

40:01But it was just such an unbelievable experience. Most people won't say it was... So where was it going up to, like, Ladakh and that kind of area? Oh, Craig, yeah, I can't remember the name. I can't remember the name of where we were, but we went right up. And then when we got off the other end, it was still a six-hour bus journey to get into where we were at. What a journey. But we stayed in, we camped in this camp, and then every day we would do a, you know, 20, 25-kilometre trek from the camp. And then what they did was the people, Charity Challenge, who organised the trek, they arranged for local artisans to come in and build a mini shopping village for us because there's 150 of us in the camp.

40:37So every night I was coming, I was desperate to try and spend all my money and leave it with the local community. So I was getting a foot massage or a head massage every night. I've only just two years later finished eating all the Himalayan honey that I bought. I ended up leaving loads of my trekking gear for them to keep over there and filling my suitcase up with all this honey and little gifts and artists and craft things that people had made. Do you have a particular connection to breast cancer yourself? No, so it was not a direct one. You know, I've known people who've suffered from it and we have a close friend of the family who did die from it, but it was Amy Dowden.

41:13So when I did Strictly, I got really, became really good friends with Tom Fletcher and Tom was dancing with Amy Dowden and Giovanna Fletcher's the main ambassador for the charity. So G had been chatting to Amy about maybe she could be a celebrity captain on one of their treks so amy learned to check her chest because of copperfield and then amy found a lump yeah and and had the mastectomy and you know so she's she's you know in remission now from the breast cancer but through that amy asked me to come on one of the treks with her in the brecon beacons and support her for a day with her team which is how i got involved with the charity and then um gee's so persuasive i remember her ringing me one day and she's like sarah I really need a team captain and I think you'll be brilliant.

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43:24So, chapter five, Sarah. Ooh, chapter five. This is our hidden gem, a place that you love that maybe my listeners don't know so much about. So, because when I was thinking about this, Alta kind of fits that bill a little bit. Obviously, everybody knew about the Great Wall of China. there. But in this last year, I've discovered, and it's not one place, but it's a holiday feeling. Now, one of my friends had talked about this holiday company for years and years and years. She's got young kids and she's one of these people, she lives a really busy, hectic life in London and doesn't get any time for herself.

44:02And so once a year, they have a two week holiday and she wants some time with her husband. She does want some time with the kids, but she also needs a bit of a break so they've been going on these nielsen holidays well i'd never heard of these holidays like i just i hadn't heard of it but my brother-in-law is a really big water he likes water sports so sailing and water skiing and everything like this so this summer we went on a big holiday me and my husband and the two boys my sister and her husband and their two girls and also i'm still really really great friends with aliash and janette from when i was oh my god Aliash is my all-time favourite professional I mean he is just such a dreamboat So have you ever met him in person?

44:43I never had a conversation with him No So if you think you love him now You just need to spend a bit of time with him And you will fall in love with him ten times more And you're still really close Well we probably did together this And what was really lovely is We've all become great friends So we went out in the summer And the lads So Simon, my husband, my brother-in-law Matt and Aliash they would have a bit of lad time, you know. And the girls, me and Helen and Jeanette would have time. And it's great because we can stick the kids in the kids club. It's a couple of nights a week. They'll look after your kids till 10 o 'clock at night.

45:14Wow. So they'll keep your kids in the kids club. So we would go and have like an adult night out, which was just brilliant. And then you go and pick up your sleeping kids from the kids club and just put them into bed. And then, but then also, you know, Aliash was out on the water skis with the kids. And then they did Pool Olympics one day. and my brother-in-law did a more advanced sailing course and took my son out and his daughter out. And me and Aliash went out for a big bike ride in the mountains one day, but you just go along and they fit you for a perfect bike and then they've got 20-odd trails around there because they get big mountain bikers come from all over the country to go there, people who love their sailing and windsurfing sports, people who are really big into their tennis.

45:56So people who like active holidays and want to, what's it they said to us switch off by switching on i'm like oh yeah you just switch and that's me i can't really switch off so i just had to switch to something different and i never thought i would enjoy something like that and we had the best time so much so my sister and her husband booked up to go back again a couple of months later they've just been to another one of their resorts so there are lots of different so they have um seven or eight different resorts greece and turkey and our helen's just been to croatia got one in sicily so they've got the but they're all on the same premise of unbelievable childcare look after your kids make sure you I mean my kids were having such a wonderful time they don't want to hang out with us because kids club that doesn't feel like childcare yeah it feels just like organized fun yeah and then we were having you know adult time as well but then we're having loads of time as a family so I have totally fallen in love with that type of holiday I think we're going to do another one next year with Aliash and Jeanette oh how lovely and they have they have kids now they've got little Lyra she's three and of course little lyra loved because so we had a mix um my eldest is 12 and then lyra was three but my sister's got an 18 month old so we had a real mix of children and uh little lyra she calls my boys you know she was on the side of the pool boys who's taking me in the pool today you know it's just so cute have you ever been to pelagone no i've never heard of it i feel like that would be like your absolute dream holiday having heard that it's in Zikinthos in Greece and it's quite a similar premise it's lots of different villas that are dotted around the mountain so you have a villa base that's yours and lots of them have pools and things so you can kind of have your own villa holiday but then there's a a water sports club that has beautiful kind of banquet tables where they do like big feasts every night the water's amazing they have every kind of water sport that you could ever imagine um it's known for its kids clubs from like i think it's five months up and they are insane we went this year um just it's beautiful it's beautiful it's it's it's quite bougie yeah but but it is just like the dream holiday because you can dip in and out of the child care you can have your own family time that's what you want and then there's loads of lovely local restaurants as well yeah i recommend it that sounds great do you know what i just saw as well you know Alex Jones from the one show yeah did she do a Nielsen holiday yes I thought I saw that well I don't know if you saw she did a week and it was a different resort to the one we'd been to because I text her going is this as good as it looks Alex like I'm watching your Instagram and I feel like I need to get on a plane and come and join you she described it as so she did a week in the resort and then she did a week on the they had like I mean it's called a yacht but she said it's like a little boat but it's like camping on the sea how fun so she said it's almost like having your own little camper van but it's a boat camper van and there's like several of these boats in a flotilla and then they all travel around so every night you've got a captain so the kids all got a chance to like pilot the boat and then you would move her up for the evening go on shore have a lovely meal have a look around the area do a bit of swimming in the sea get back on your boat and sleep in your boat on a night that's really cool Oh my God, the kids would get so excited about that.

49:13Oh, they'd love it. I just don't feel like I could talk my husband into it, given that he won't go even regular camping, let alone camping on a boat. So does he love the luxury or does he not like the roughing? He doesn't like the roughing. Right, yeah. He just doesn't like the roughing. I get it. I know. So I think he's going to be hard sell. So yeah, I text Helen Skelton, because we're all good friends, me, Helen, Alex. I was like, have you seen Alex's holiday? And obviously she's a single man. I was like, we could go together next year and take the kids. Good idea. Yes. you say just leave my husband at home it'll not be the first time I've holidayed and left him at home well very much in contrast our penultimate chapter is your worst travel experience or the place that you'd never go back to so it was about 15 years ago it's going to start off sounding fabulous right I was so my business is crafters companion and we do craft products and but it's mainly paper craft but I decided at this one point we were going to diversify the business and move into beads and do jewellery making.

50:12So I went on a buying trip to India. So I took a hide a girl who was working for me, a head of buying for the beads, and we flew out to Varanasi. Now, Varanasi is the most incredible city. I don't know if you've ever been, but for any of the listeners, it's the oldest city in the world. And it is, it's on the Ganges. And it was just the experience of a lifetime. We were only there for two nights. And we just went to make all these selections of beads. But the family that owned the factory that really looked after us, they wanted to show us authentic India. So they insisted one morning they were going to take us for sunrise on the Ganges.

50:48So we went, we got on a boat when it was pitch black and then we're sailing along the Ganges. And of course, you're looking to the side and you've got people showering. You've got people at the toilet. You've got dead bodies where people are getting, you know, sailed out to sea and set on fire. It's the holiest city. it's the holiest city in India so all that's happening and I just remember someone saying to me do not touch the water whatever you do like don't make sure if you go near the Ganges just don't touch the water well I must have touched the water so we'd flown back to from Varanasi to Delhi that night and woke up the next morning feeling a little bit you know under the weather but we were going to the Taj Mahal they would take us to the Taj Mahal for the day before we flew back and so a five hour car journey to the Taj Mahal which was okay.

51:38Oh, that was okay. The five-hour car journey back, not so okay. And I think I'd vomited so many times. We had to keep stopping and I had to keep changing. So I'd gone through all of my clothes, bearing in mind, we'd only come for a weekend. And I remember getting back to Delhi and going and we went back into the hotel. I had to go back to the hotel where we'd stayed the night before and just ask if I could shower. And so they let me go into the, what was like the gym area in the hotel and take the shower and I remember being so poorly that the girl who's staying with me she had to climb over the shower cubicle door because I was like laid on the floor in the shower to have to unlock the door from the inside and get me out and get me dry I mean god love it she'd only worked for me for a few months that was next level she had to practically carry me to the to the airport and I remember ringing my husband and at one point my husband was looking into he thought he was gonna have to get a flight over to India to take care of me to bring me home again and I remember I just you know it was back in the early days of the business so I'd never flown business class ever you know I'd only ever flown economy and I just thought I can't make that massive long flight back to the UK if I'm not in a bed I can't do it and so I was and I remember all I had left were these Ted Baker suit trousers they were like my best suit trousers at the time I had a pair of white trainers these Ted Baker suit trousers I had my scarf that I'd been a little bit sick on and had to try and clean and I was I was sat on the floor next to the KLM desk.

53:04I've always flown KLM and I got my frequent flyer card out and I was like, please tell me I have enough points to upgrade us to business class. And Sarah's saying to me, the girl who was with me, she's going, you don't need to pay for my upgrade. Don't worry. I can't be that person, whoever sits in business and puts the staff in economy. I couldn't. So I insisted. I was like, no, no, no, I'll get us both business. Cleaned out all of my air miles to get us both a seat in business. And I can just remember us sitting in business and she was desperate to enjoy the experience of being in business class and and I can barely keep my eyes open and keep any food down and I'm like Sarah please drink all the champagne eat all the good food on your behalf make up for the fact that I'm not doing it and I was um yes I was I was very very good but it's just a bit of deli belly you know 48 hours and it was out my system and I was totally fine okay I was absolutely fine yeah but when they say when you're abroad you've got to be careful yeah you do okay noted because I think Varanasi is on a lot of people's bucket list so it's yeah you just have to bear in mind be careful but as awful as i felt at the time it was one of the most life-changing experiences going to varanasi i could not recommend it more and my friend actually is an author and um she's written a very famous book it's called a thousand boy kisses by tilly cole and um the follow-up book is all about dealing with grief and they go on a tour around the world and one of the big points in the book is about varanasi and i remember ringing her and i was oh my God, Natalie, this is amazing.

54:27Like all this, how do you know all this about Varanasi? She hadn't even been, you know, she just researched it. But I said, as someone who's been, that book really connected with me. So it's called A Thousand Broken Pieces, but it's the sequel. So you've got to read A Thousand Boy Kisses. Well, Sarah, I have absolutely loved traveling around the world with you. I've never come up for air. You've made me more excited about wanting to go and do more traveling again. We are on to the final chapter of your travel diaries. and it's chapter seven the destination at the top of your travel bucket list where would you love to go to the most so i'd love to do this i don't know if i'll ever convince my husband to do it but i would really really love to go out to the west coast of america to pick up a winnebago and to travel all the way down the west coast over several weeks just and go to yosemite and go and explore.

55:22So my mum and dad for, I think it was for my dad's 60th. So was it his 60th? I think it might have been his 70th. Thank goodness, because it wasn't that long. It was about six or seven years ago for his 70th birthday. This is what I got them for their birthday. So I arranged the whole trip for them. They flew into Seattle, picked up a Winnie Bay go, drove all the way down. They did three weeks and then flew back out of LA. Epic. And it was just unbelievable. and I keep telling my husband I was like sweetheart it'll be like just like on Meet the Fockers where they've got that massive big coat I said I'm talking something it's not like our little camper van that you don't want to sleep I said you know proper big thing oh no no no we'll just go and do hotels and whatnot but I just feel like I want to be on the open road and I want to have that experience some of the Pacific Coast Highway oh I'd love to yeah I'd love to or even along Canada as well you know there'd be places in Canada that you could go around.

56:19But it's the idea of just going and having a Winnie Bay going driving around. Yeah. Yeah, you could go up past Seattle going north and do Banff and Jasper and Vancouver and all of that. So that is what I did for my, I think it was my mum's 60th. I got them, because I just think at their age, they don't need anything. They don't want anything materialistically. Yeah, experiences. So I've got them experiences. Yeah, you're so right. It was so much better. So I remember from my dad's, I think it was my dad's 60th I got them the Trans-Siberian Express because he's always been obsessed with that train so they did the Trans-Siberian Express that was 16 years ago and then for my mum's big birthday I think it was her 60th they went over and they went to Banff and Lake Louise and they did the Rocky Mountain and then they did an Alaskan cruise while they were there as well and then they had Victoria and my mum said it was just incredible that's that's the that's the moment isn't it that's what you want yeah exactly they're the things that stay in your heart yep thank you so much sara it's been such a pleasure those were your travel diaries i've loved it i've really enjoyed it thank you for having me

57:35oh huge thank you to the lovely sara her new book crafting for all occasions by sara davis is out now don't forget to also check out her podcast which sounds great mind your business wherever you get your podcasts thanks so much for listening today if you'd like to find out who's joining me on next week's podcast don't forget to follow me on instagram or tiktok i'm at tolly rubenstein i'd love to hear from you remember that all the destinations mentioned by my guests are included in the episode show notes here on your podcast app and on my website thetraveldiariespodcast.com I'll be back on Sunday with a brand new episode of Unpacked, your weekly weekend dose of Wanderlust.

58:15In the meantime, wishing you guys all very safe travels.

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