Dina Asher-Smith | What Travel is Actually Like as an Athlete

0:03Welcome to Travel Secrets with me, Tanya Rose, the podcast sharing wisdom for fellow travelers. Each week, I ask my guests to reveal their six travel secrets and the holidays and adventures that surround them. I would just like to say thank you to Mason Rose, the sales and communication agency that represents some of the finest hotels around the world for partnering with Travel Secrets, the podcast.

0:33Today, my guest is the lovely Dina Asher-Smith, the indomitable British sprinter. Dina is a three-time Olympic medalist, world champion winner, and she is the fastest woman in Britain. I mean, what a title. That is amazing. Thank you. It's definitely something I'm really proud of but that was a wonderful introduction so thank you very much well you travel all around the world with your athletics and also I'm sure for holidays so I can't wait to hear your travel secrets but before we get into them perhaps you can just tell us a little bit about yourself how you grew up if travel was part of it or how travel has impacted the person you've become um travel is a huge part of who I am I've well I grew up in London um my parents are both like london-based but my dad was born in jamaica my mom's of trinidadi in jamaica descent so we've always had like a real cultural um breadth in our household and um my parents love to travel so i was always going on family holidays every single year but they like to see things and they like to do things and they like to appreciate other people's cultures as well as our own so i think that really obviously defined who i am but i have so many memories of when i was younger just if I if we were going to I'll talk about it later but if we were going to a certain place we would go and see what that place was famous for and we would try and understand a little bit about that country and a little bit about how the people there live their lives and I'm really grateful for that kind of introduction to seeing the world because I think that ultimately it makes you a lot more appreciative of just other people and the way that they are and how they choose to live their lives and I think it also makes travel a lot more interesting.

2:21Well I'm not going to ask you anymore because we'll go into the travel secrets and I'm sure you're going to tell us but if you don't then I'll ask you some other questions. I'm so excited yeah. Well it's lovely to know that this actually takes you around the world in your head before you even start thinking about all the places you've been to and the experiences you had so I can't wait to hear. Let's start with the number one destination that you think everyone should go to once in their lifetime okay this one's really boring but I stand by it completely and even more so since I have moved to Texas to base my training recently but the number one place people should visit is London I'm sorry it's London and I know we're both British and I feel like as a British person we kind of go oh London are you sure but not being based here and just taking so much of like our great city for granted I think when you're here sometimes or you feel like you appreciate it but you you're in it and you're just kind of you know like going round and round and round you do not appreciate how beautifully unique and fantastic it is like even the transport it's the variety of people it's a variety of shops if you want to go to the theatre then you want to go to an art gallery and you want to go to a concert in Camden you want to see Beyonce then you want to go shopping and get anything you want you can do it all here whatever kind of food you want you've got it cooked by the people who authentically that is their cuisine because they've moved here and um I just really think it's completely unparalleled so when you come back from wherever you are do you land and think I'm I oh I love it I love it I love it and even though as soon as I get here I turn on the radio we're all moaning about something I just laugh we're moaning about the weather we're moaning about the roads we're moaning about something I just laugh because I think that is just quintessential Britishness it's like and even that's me London you're like oh yeah you know the weather whatever then I moved away and now I live in what 30 30 40 degrees every day I came back and it rained yesterday and I was so happy also because I got to wear the most fabulous raincoats which you can't wear in Austin I can't do that and I know that um that probably isn't the most fascinating answer for somewhere that you should visit but I firmly believe that London is the best city in the world like you can't tell me any different it's got the balance of culture it's got the balance of the modern and contemporary culture with the history everywhere you go and it feels like the city is very much living and breathing and you're part of a longer trajectory that's bigger than yourself yeah I mean I live in London have done for many many many years and I absolutely love it and I travel all over the world but I first of all I love my own bed so when I come home my bed is wonderful but I do think it's as you say you can go to the theatre you can go to a concert you can you can do anything can't you?

5:07Yeah you can everything's at your fingertips and I think definitely going to lots of different cities they all have something different to offer but I don't think anywhere brings it together quite so well as London. And how is Austin? Do you like living in Austin? I do I think it's a big culture shift from the UK and I think that um it's just been such a different way of life I love the sun I love the climate I love how the city is a manageable size it's like 15 to 20 minutes you can be anywhere and do anything and the cowboy culture there is really cute do they all wear their steps yes so fun yes and the amount of people that I just see riding a horse down the street yeah honestly it's so normal like you know well it's not it's not like every single day but I and compare it to how we see a tractor here yeah so like you don't see it every day but it's not enough to tell so it's not you know uncommon enough to tell somebody you saw it it's exactly the same and um at first I was like I saw somebody just you know go past kind of like sometimes on their phone like you know with a cowboy cowboy hat cowboy boots and I was like wow this is real I'm really deep in like you know cowboy country yeah what is your most unexpected travel experience my most unexpected one was hawaii um i feel like you hear a lot about hawaii you think oh it might be a little bit over overrated i hate i'm not a fan of that word but you think it might be a little bit overrated because everybody talks about how great it is everybody talks about how beautiful it is whatever then i went did you love it oh i loved it it's my absolute number one favorite place oh i mean mine is london but in terms of a holiday that's not my city my favorite place ever and um it's completely worth the journey complete it was a very long very very very long journey completely worth it and it's just stunning so when I went I went with a group of five of my very close track friends we went to Wahoo and did Honolulu and the North Shore and then we went to Kauai and we stayed near Hanalei Bay so we got a big kind of variety of different experiences and it was stunning the pace was beautiful yes it's expensive you know the food the import blah blah blah but um you loved it the sunsets yeah and that's my picture today you know we're talking about yeah yeah it's just the sunset and the broad spectrum of colors that we saw it was just such a peaceful place and um I was just so happy there completely did you win surf or surf oh I tried to surf oh my gosh I almost broke my back I wrote my back so I love yeah I love exactly that's why I love water so I'm always trying to you know be in the water or swim or kayak or something like I just find water really calming I love seeing water motif themes in movies all of that so if I get I was me and my friend Laura I hope she won't mind me talking about this but we're the ones that were like a bit more like we want to get in the water so we thought we would try to like you know bodyboard or whatever it's called we both can't do it so laura went off first with the bodyboard and she came back a little bit like flustered be like you're all right she's like yeah yeah yeah just calmly sat down i was like oh i might have a go and she was like cool see ya so i went off i tried to catch a wave bearing in mind we're in like we did this in hale but the waves in hawaii are known for being great for surfing terrible for beginners if you're a beginner don't do it don't do it i'm telling you right now don't do it or do an instructor please don't do what I did don't do it and I was like yeah I could do this I jumped on the little front of my board paddle I don't know what I'm doing the wave literally folds me in half like a piece of paper I get pushed into the sand I was so traumatized and my friend Laura comes sprinting towards me my bikini bottoms are gone she fishes my bikini bottoms pulls I'm still on the sand like oh my god I'm dying she dresses me then she whispers yeah that happened to me too I just I just didn't want to talk about it.

9:09Are you okay? And then I got up and I've got sand all the way up past my hair. I was looking at her like, you should have told me. And we couldn't stop laughing. You would have still done it though. Yeah, I wouldn't have done it. But I couldn't stop laughing. And yeah, so I tried. I'm bad. I will definitely try again. Maybe with an instructor next time. Maybe with an instructor. Maybe not in one of, you know. No, maybe go to Berets here first where it's not quite the big waves. Yeah, where it's not somewhere that's famed for how incredible it is for surfing for professionals. I might start somewhere soon.

9:42Absolutely. I interviewed Minnie Driver on this podcast and she's a huge surfer. And her favorite place is Hawaii for surfing. But she has been surfing for many, many years. And she was telling me all about it. Also, she was discussing the waterfalls, saying how amazing. Did you go on walks to the waterfalls? We did. We did. We had such a jam-packed fun holiday as well. Another Laura Escape. we were did a kayak and a hike and we thought it was going to be something very chill it was like a six hour up and down got a big workout but it was beautiful and stunning but I think my favorite part of Hawaii was actually Honolulu as a city I was explaining yeah I was explaining to um I guess lots of my friends my parents I completely understand why people kind of get here and then they might especially if they're American because you know it's a state they pick up the phone they go yeah you know I'm just I'm just gonna stay here we'll just figure out because I think Honolulu as a city it's a bit like Barcelona where it has that blend of a genuine city but also that very unique stunning beach beautiful sunsets and all the amenities and in Honolulu you can get everything there's all the shops all the businesses all of this blah blah except the pace just feels like you're on a beach and I think it has the biggest kind of outdoor shopping center ever not ever but like in the world and it's just stunning and it's so calm and so peaceful and you truly just feel really tranquil and um again I was shocked because you just think you think Honolulu you kind of imagine like just big hotels and like but I always think of Elvis films when I think you know what I mean yeah yeah and um it wasn't I think it was be closer to compare it to the most beautiful side of Barcelona if that makes sense but just with obviously like a Pacific Island sprinkle I mean when you go on holiday is it because it's between training um normally it's off season off season yeah so um i love and i'm a big fan of breaks decompression i feel that you really have to have a good holiday to realign your mind any year that i've kind of just worked through or not really taken too much for break on my off season uh the next season i feel like i have to do a bit more work psychologically to be fresh so i've just learned that you have to carve out time for yourself when you're off you absolutely have to and how many weeks or months is that so between trainings do you like four to six weeks so I won't always go away for all of that but that's the the break in between the break in between yeah yeah so what is your most overrated or underrated I know you hate the word overrated most people do actually which is really nice so it might be that it's an underrated I'm doing underrated I actually think that's Rome and again you might think that oh I would say that's overrated but I think that I'm a big history buff so I did history at uni so I've got a lot of and coming from my parents as well I've got a lot of respect for people that preserve the history of the place that they're in and I think Rome has done it beautifully and I think that not many cities in the world have done as good a job as the Romans have as preserving the thousands of years worth of history that they have in their city and also making it so authentic to their way of life and even when you have the trevi fountain that is such a beautifully beautiful arc yeah beat of architecture you've got all the stores around it so it's very livable it's very modern and even when you've got the coliseum and all of these places the forum and and i think it's just so beautiful that you can as a tourist see and imagine how um people lived their life back then um because one of my favorite cities that I really really enjoyed going to and I think I'll talk about it more in a bit is New Orleans because I specialized in jazz for my degree so I loved it yeah honestly I've been really excited to do this podcast that's amazing yeah I remember that yeah honestly I've been very excited with with yeah so I did a lot of history but I specialized at the end in American jazz particularly in the 1920s like Louis Armstrong Duke Ellington and stuff like that so I went to New Orleans for the first time like less than a month ago I had a fabulous time um but and I'll talk about that more but but i think you could definitely see the difference in the effort of preservation at some of their structures and that's why for me i think rome is even more underrated because i mean the food's great the hotel is great you can do you know it's fabulous it's walkable all those things um but also if you really want to see just the continuity of human civilization in life i think they've done a phenomenal job and actually it's just like walking around a museum you don't even need to go into a museum just every street corner is it's so beautiful yeah yeah you understand what yeah i'm going to rome tomorrow morning actually so i should be looking around and enjoying everything a great job and it's really hard to preserve like it's really hard to preserve and have it as a living breathing city and not just have it as like you know a relic um i think they've done a great job did you race there or were you i've raced there i've raced there a lot so we had europeans last year done the diamond league a few times but it's definitely a big destination for us athletically so it's a diamond league that I always enjoy running at if if I if it makes sense on my schedule in that year and when you're doing that do you ever get time either side or is it because you're in the flow you have to go from one meeting to another it depends sometimes it is one meeting to another sometimes if you're coming from afar you're jet lagged you're not always in the mood but I think as I've gotten a bit older I've definitely made the effort to do more so for example when I go to Paris this year I've been to Paris so many times I've never been to Versailles I can't I know I know I'm really upset about that so I mean again I don't think I'm gonna have time this year but there's an exhibition at the Louvre that I really want to go to so I'm making sure I'm pulling my Eurostar forward so I've got time to go to that but I remember my first well second actually it's being actually third ever big senior your competition was in Beijing and I remember at the time some of the sprinters that were getting ready to retire like were older than me they said one of their biggest regrets was when they would travel to these amazing places they would because you're so focused on performance you're staying in your hotel room you'll eat sleep train sometimes they're playing computer games you're talking whatever but you're not really leaving and as an athlete you understand that because you've got a duty to your performance duty to your work duty to conserve your energy but when I left Beijing and I realized I haven't seen the Great War with China I didn't see Tiananmen Square I didn't see Forbidden City I didn't see anything and I was in Beijing I didn't see the Silk Market I didn't see anything I was like girl you can't let that happen again yeah because you haven't been to Beijing you know what I mean yeah like I've been in a sporting term so I've done the Bird's Nest I still think it's one of the best stadiums in the world the fastest stadiums the most beautiful architecturally yeah definitely one of the fastest stadium that's more of a tracky uh specific I think it's a very quick track I love it um but I haven't been to Beijing like I haven't seen the Great World China.

16:33So next time you go you have to stay before or after. Yeah I have to make it work and it's not always you know you've got a schedule so you try your hardest but if it's not possible it's not possible but like I've been to Beijing but I haven't seen the Great World China. Going back to Paris there is an amazing hotel in Versailles in the walls of Versailles. It's owned by a hotel group called Les Erel and it's cool it's just absolutely beautiful it's only got 13 bedrooms but it is so beautiful and when you stay there they actually say to you would you like to be woken up like Marie Antoinette was to which I said yes obviously and they bring in milk and cookies and then they they say would you like us to run your bath for you and they run your bath and then you open the windows and you are in the Palace of Versailles Gardens it is the most you sold that to me it's absolutely exquisite that is exactly how I'd like to start my day thank you very much and also if you're staying there you get to go to the hall of mirrors after everyone's gone so when it's closed so you have the whole of the hall of mirrors to yourself it's definitely worth a night very very yeah very good top top travel tip yeah I'm doing that thank you very much you've sold out to me in the most fabulous way so thank you so let's go on to food and drink as an athlete you must be incredibly disciplined and you probably have to have a very set regime of what you eat and what you drink do you ever have a blowout how does it work with food and drink and do you have any favorite restaurants when you do or drinks or let's just talk about food yeah so I have to be very disciplined particularly at this time of year because you know just my job is to run very fast exactly so when I'm on off season I definitely indulge a little bit but I think also I think after you've spent years and years kind of being healthy you also crave healthy food so i actually really enjoy fresh stuff which is a little bit boring but you can have the most beautiful fresh stuff i guess or not i guess but you can uh my favorite restaurant in london is fallow always um i love fallow i was there last night i'm always there love the corn ribs love the mushroom parfait love it love it love it love it oh they're so delicious my friends actually did the most fabulous job because we went there for the first time during the pandemic where they found it for my birthday as a surprise and we went there and our minds were blown my friend Pooja found it she did the most fabulous job and so we've been this has been a big cornerstone of our friendship for years and it's been nice to see it develop from I think it was like off Piccadilly Circus and then it's moved to Haymarket yeah so it's been really nice to see it develop and I'm a big fan of Fallow but I think my favorite cuisine and um is Middle Eastern cuisine and i think in london we're spoilt for it but also when we race in like qatar and and and like yeah across the middle east as well and i love it i don't drink i love the mocktails always got the most fabulous mocktails and um it's lots of salads very clean so i always feel very comfortable eating middle eastern food but um yeah so when you're training and you're in the middle east can you still have a big thing or do you have to have certain amount of calories I don't really watch I'm not really a calorie girl I think some people are but I just I'm gonna be honest I just don't really know I've never really you know some people count your body yeah I know my body and sometimes you have to eat depending on what you've got coming tomorrow if you know that you're going to need a lot of energy because you've got a very tiring session tomorrow then you've got to prepare you've got to line your stomach you've got to make sure that you've got the energy to get your job done so for athletes I don't always think calorie counting is the most effective way uh to go about your day because at the end of the day i see food as an energy source so it's not about sometimes that sometimes the year if you're trying to lose weight then yeah you've got a bit of a deficit but most like 95 percent of the time i'm making sure that i have enough fuel to do the tasks that my body is required to do so um it's definitely eating for function before anything sparkly but um definitely have a lot of famous um favorites I love a good apple crumble and custard as well so it's some nice comfort food does your mother make that she you know what she actually does it my mom's not the most like big dessert maker I like to make the dessert so my the best thing I make I think is a good tart tartan I'm really good at it I know I know it's actually quite complicated isn't it I'm very proud of myself that I can do that um sorry I know I certainly wouldn't even try I would go to a restaurant and do it the hardest thing is the caramel but that's right at the beginning if you get it right then you're fine and it's just layering some stuff and everything and do your parents cook um Caribbean food yeah they do they do my dad cooks a lot as well definitely I don't live at home anymore but when I lived at home we'd always have like a very traditional Jamaican like Sunday or weekend meal definitely around Christmas as well Christmas Eve we have like a whole I mean our Christmas day has always like been a hybrid of like um every english and also like our jamaican favorites but um we definitely kind of remix our holidays all the time but my my mom is like the lead chef on that one and my dad is very good at soups which is a big part of jamaican culture as well and do you go back to jamaica i every single time there's a race in jamaica well firstly yes always love jamaica and um but also for racing every single time that there is a race that make sense to me in Jamaica um I will try and get there yeah this year I even ran a 400 which is double what I would normally yeah double what I normally run because that time of year it made sense um I was looking at my schedule and uh there was a big a big famous race in Jamaica yesterday but obviously I knew at this time of year I was going to be in London so I couldn't do that and so the race that I did the 400 in was a few months ago but I knew that at that time of year I had to be running a four because I was still in my deep training it's a bit too early for a one or a series two for me and if I wanted to run in Jamaica that year I was gonna have to go through the pain and run something long and I took one for the team and how did you do I did good I think at that point I ran a personal best in that race so I was having fun and um I definitely did a good job I ran it I ran a very strong race and um but yeah it was exhausting I was laid out on the floor for a very long time but I was incredibly happy because you know I was in Jamaica lovely and Do your parents come and watch you when you go to Jamaica?

22:54They do normally. This year they didn't go because they were actually in Tobago for my mom's 60th. They're very well. My parents are very well-traveled. Are they? Probably, I don't even know. I don't know if they're more well-traveled than me. But we can talk about them. They love to travel. Yeah, I talk about them. We can talk about them later. But they love to travel. And so my mom's 60th, she had lots of uncles and cousins and stuff. they went to my maternal grandmother's home in Tobago to kind of just because she passed away a couple years well three years ago and so they wanted to make the trip to just see where they see where she grew up and really understand you know her and they had a fabulous time but I was quite sad I was I had to miss that because of my own training schedule and stuff but also they would normally come and watch me run so they're in Tobago I was in Jamaica yeah did they used to watch you when you were running here every time oh absolutely i think it's easier to tell the races that my parents have not been to really then they yeah because even i ran in philadelphia last week my mom was there um i'll be in also stockholm paris in the next like 10 days absolutely i'm going to see them at all if not like half if not two out of three but um they love it they've always been travelers they're people that even when we were younger they prioritize their spending their money their holiday to widening their horizons and traveling you know seeing the world yeah so I've always been the child that was on a long flight from like four years old just as well yeah so I've been really excited to do this podcast yeah what is your top travel tip or travel secret travel secret I think um much the theme of what I've been talking about is make sure you see the place because I think a holiday or a break or it should be well you've always you know what you're there for whether you're traveling and working or you're traveling for a break I think you should just try and get a little bit of a balance between rest and culture because ultimately we will all touch wood hopefully it's a long time for all of us but get to an age where mobility isn't so easy travel isn't so easy it's not as easy to go on a long flight it's not easy to go on a plane and I think I've had a few people in my life where either mobility has not been an issue and I remember when I did the um Olympics in Rio my grandma was so upset at that point because she oh she really wanted to go but she was just at that point maybe if it was like two years before it would have been more sense for her to travel but she just couldn't do it and she was so sad everybody went and she was so sad and I think it really honed because I think she'd been to Brazil before she wanted to go back yeah travel family but um it just really honed to me that yes we're busy and it's easy to say oh I'm jet lagged I'm gonna lie in bed or I'm working I'm just gonna you know go back to the hotel room and sleep and I understand our body has limits do what you've got to do but if you can go to a restaurant go to a bar go to the well if you're in Rio go to Christ the Redeemer go to the beach just take a walk even if you're tired and jet lagged just take a walk because there will be a time when it isn't that easy to do it and you might not be going to those places exactly and all you've got is your memories and I think you should always try and make memories so yeah that's a very very lovely travel tip thank you I agree I travel all over the place and sometimes even I'm in and out but I do try and go to somewhere where the locals have said or just to get the sense of the place because it's a privilege being able to see do places and travel it's a luxury and a privilege and I think we just shouldn't squander it yeah I agree so what is your most poignant travel memory I think I've had two of them so the pyramids in Egypt and New Orleans so pyramids in Egypt that was I went there when I was like I want to say like 10 years old I'd been really into Egyptology my parents had been I think just after their honeymoon or something and they really wanted to take me as a child to appreciate the magnitude of history and a culture and um you know as a child as a 10 year old that's a big that's a big concept isn't it um but i know i was into my hieroglyphics and i was like yeah let's go you know pyramids giza i did my research we did valley of the queens pyramids giza and the museum so uh they're like right it's hot make sure you're ready sun thingy and here and you know so i was like cool we stayed in Higada made the trip to like those destinations and I remember even though I'm 29 now 19 years I remember that drive that you do from Cairo up into the pyramids of Giza and I was like this is insane and then from that moment I was opened up to the concept of the wonders of the world and um just also just the magnitude of things that are incomprehensible like the sphinx and the size of the pyramids and the fact that this was a tomb and this was like just it was for burial it really opens your eyes to just how other people do culture as well and i think that's an interesting part i mean not to be morbid but we'll come to new orleans in a second but even their cemeteries and how the new orleans cemeteries being all above ground it's just so different but um we went inside the pyramid i remember it was very hot and smelly and i remember my face being very humid got down there walked all the way down there my mom's a bit claustrophobic she's like i've done it once i'm not doing it again i'm gonna stay outside here see you guys later went in with my um dad saw everything inside came outside and it was just an incredible experience and i have so many pictures of me kind of as a child standing next to the pyramid gosh a 10 year old next to those yeah it was huge and I think like also I think and I think this is also why I like London a bit as well I like moments that remind you because sometimes I think in well maybe not me but sometimes in modern life it's easy to think that like it's all about us me me me me me how fabulous am I like not always but you know it's you think about self-maximization and all these things but sometimes I think it's useful to be reminded that you're part of a large trajectory life has been great before you it's going to be great after you so just you know do your best don't overthink everything and be very steward of the world I think you know and whether we're looking after climate or anything like that I think it's very important and I think the pyramids very much um and the whole of Egyptian culture I guess very much solidified that for me because they're incredible they're what two three thousand year olds and they're there they're fine what the little gold cap isn't so gold anymore okay it's been 3 000 years that's fine made by all these men yeah and it's just it's it's insane and and I think that's something that really sticks out to me and then again New Orleans I was so happy to go there because I did jazz I specialized in American jazz for my dissertation at the end of my uni and it was somewhere that I always wanted to go to just see this kind of layering of different cultures and how that affected uh just the city that they're in today i got to see convo square i got to experience the food i got to see the french quarter and i got to appreciate a very unique american city and um yeah what are the burial places then so basically so i'm gonna nerd out so basically lots of the there's like i'm gonna say it's like the king louis cemetery there's like one two three and they're from i guess i think it's like the 1800s or the turn of the 19th or the early 20th century so 19 oh whatever and um basically i've ever seen like the originals vampire diaries anything like that and they have a scene where they're like running through a really creepy like graveyard where the graves are like all like kind of mausoleum types and they're raised above ground probably was shot there so in these like enclosed cemeteries um the I guess kind of imported from France there was like a culture of the the graves being above ground and they're like little houses little tombs and it's just so different and it's very much I didn't do the tourist trip inside because I mean I like it but also I was a bit creeped out yeah so I didn't do the tourist bit inside but I definitely like peeked in the gate peeked over the wall and I understand the history of it because I studied it but it's just such a thing that it's just very unique to that space and it speaks to um just the French culture in in in that place but they've got that French influence Spanish influence obviously a big African-American influence they've got a Cajun influence then they've got this America's coming in as well so it's a very very unique city and um I loved it and I loved all the jazz as well I have not been to either I've been to you have to do the pyramids well I have done the pyramids that's not true I have but for I was staying in Hagaadah as well I was actually doing a diving holiday oh that's great which was lovely and I went in saw the pyramids and came up what I would love to do in Egypt is the Nile cruise yes you know take a small boat with some friends yeah and then go up to Luxor yes I think I've done Luxor I've done yeah I've done Luxor yeah you have to do it I think it's great and I think that um I think Egyptology I think the fact that we know so much about ancient Egypt I think that's also testament to how hard people in that that country and that culture have worked to understand, not only understand, but also preserve their history.

32:11And yes, fabulous. And New Orleans is definitely on my bucket list, as is Nashville, not Austin for the music, but Nashville. Yeah. I really want to go to Nashville. Have you been? I haven't been, but everybody's saying that it's amazing. And I think there's, I hear a lot about it because I think Nashville and Austin, even though they're, I mean, in American terms, they're very close, but for us Europeans, it's still like a two hour flight. But people often do both. Yeah, there's multiple flights a day going each way. It's very much, they're kind of like a twin city, not officially, but like a kind of, a very muchness.

32:43I want to see Dollyland though. So do I. I would like to do Nashville, Dollywood. Oh, Dollywood, sorry, wrong one. And Austin. Yeah. But I want to meet Dolly too. Oh, of course we do. Definitely want to meet. And Graceland. Yes. I know we can't meet Elvis, but I'd like to do Graceland too. Honestly, I think that's what, when it comes to America, I was saying just before, I think they've got so many like unique things and it's interesting how America like sells itself and markets itself because I believe that one of their biggest unique selling points is the geography the climate and the topography like it's just so beautiful in terms of like their natural beauty is amazing but also like yeah I said Dollywood, Graceland all these things with their musical icons and that's kind of what I was also comparing and contrasting with New Orleans and rome as well because being a jazz person i had like lots of monuments particularly in louis armstrong's personal history that i wanted to see and because i come from like europe where everything if it's significant it's got a blue plaque it's preserved full stop you know even if it's like you know you can have i don't know you can have uh an author's house preserved yeah you know and um so kind of turning up and understanding that the birth of a music form that came from such a varied and interesting background and influenced so much of like the music and the culture and the pop culture that we have today and did so much for race relations in the US as well I was like oh no why haven't you preserved this club haven't you got a little plan and it was only a hundred years ago like you know if you've got some countries is doing Rome is doing thousands Egypt's doing thousands you can do a hundred years ago so there was some stuff I was a little bit sad to see that like some of those places that were very iconic weren't preserved I also feel the same about the big jazz scene in New York like some of the halls and stuff they're not as well preserved like I get a bit sad about that because I think that that is a very unique kind of American cultural thing that they could be really honing in on but um yeah and also as you say that whole journey between one place and another in the states it's so different so different in LA and the Pacific Highway up to San Francisco is beautiful and you've got the Grand Canyon which is amazing there are just so many places so many places to go yeah we've done San Francisco the Golden Gate Bridge is huge yeah yeah so I mean you've been to so many wonderful places I asked you to bring a photograph that sums up travel for you yeah and can you show me a photograph or a few photos and then tell me what that means I wish I'd brought my Egypt one now because now I'm thinking about that um but I think I chose a little bit of this is Honolulu from honestly standing outside a restaurant exactly that's amazing in the middle of their city most of it is Hawaii so Hawaii Hawaii just mainly because it was so tranquil and so beautiful and I think it was a good example of a place that like yes very well talked about everybody goes on about how beautiful Hawaii is so much the point you might think it's overrated it's not it's not I I'm somebody who I don't always like to go back to the same place twice because I just think there's so many more things to see always but I will go back to Hawaii very easily so before I let you go what's next for you where are you going what's next for Dina what's next for me we are uh well I'm racing racing the Sierra my world championships this year we're in Tokyo very excited to go to Tokyo have you been to I've been to Tokyo but we weren't during COVID so we didn't really get to see much but this time fingers crossed touch we're not going to have any last minutes of course the olympics was there exactly we were just uh very much locked down but i'm very excited to just see everything i'm sorry i'm we've done i've done uh bits of japan before but never tokyo and i'm really excited to go there see all the culture uh the people the stores and just i I think it's a culture that has a lot of fun with life as well.

36:47Bit of karaoke. Yeah. So I'm really excited to go there. And then what's next for me? Next week, in a few days, I'm in Oslo, Stockholm, then Paris. And then I've got loads of places I want to go to. I really want to see Singapore. I've got a little list, actually. I want to see Singapore. I want to see, yeah, Mecca. I really want to see that. Yeah, I think it would be beautiful. I really want to see Palace of Versailles, as I said. And you said Istanbul you want to go to. And I really want to go and see the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, I think, mainly from, again, a layering of history perspective.

37:20Like, I think it's more Istanbul, much like Istanbul, you've got Jerusalem, you've got New Orleans, where you've got cities and places that have a very unique layering of cultures and history. Well, the wonderful thing about Istanbul is you have the east and the west where they meet. It's incredible. It's stunning. And there's a lovely new hotel, the Peninsula, which you must try. It's right on the Bosphorus. It's just fantastic. You'd love it. Thank you so much for your recommendation. Yeah, absolutely love it. So lots of places. And then obviously you have the Olympics in three years' time. Yes, in LA.

37:48In LA, that one's going to be different. And it's going to be so much fun as well. I went to, been to LA a couple of times. Went to LA for the first time last year. I think went to Laguna Beach. And then this year I was in LA again. I think they're going to do a great job. Well, we will be watching in anticipation, cheering you all the way. and it has been such a joy and delight to go around the world with you. You are so well traveled and an inspiration to everyone in everything you do, but it's been really lovely to meet you. Thank you. This has been a truly enjoyable podcast. Like just to have a chat about travel has been so much fun.

38:25So thank you for having me. Thank you so much.