Elizabeth Day | Why Everyone Should Visit Egypt

0:00You're listening to Travel Secrets with Tanya Rose, the podcast that shares 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. Today my guest is the wonderful Elizabeth Day. When I started Travel Secrets I had a list of my top 10 guests that I wanted to interview and you were number one so I am so honoured and privileged that you said yes oh my gosh I'm honoured and privileged that I was number one on that list let alone like making that list because you've told me who else was on that list and I am let's just say I'm deeply flattered and it's so lovely to be here well you your podcast how to fail is my go-to podcast I'm in your colours today I literally me and em how to fail podcast colors you are the most amazing amazing author and i told you before we started that friendaholic was my go-to book for all my friends when it came out thank you i absolutely adore it and all of the others to be honest but friendaholic was just fantastic your sub stack is sensational oh my gosh you're so nice i'm a huge i am literally a super fan i love that you have my sub stack oh it's brilliant it's absolutely brilliant i love it and i tell all my friends and I share it and I just think it's fantastic you recently went on holiday with our mutual friend Trini to Egypt so I hope we're going to hear about that yes don't you worry and I read the most hilarious article about you saying that actually when you travel you are a monster so I really want to hear about that it was years ago and it's it was talking about getting on a plane and not having your luggage above your head and I just thought this is hysterical we've got we've got to hear more about that so welcome lovely Elizabeth oh thank you for having me honestly what a lovely introduction and I'd forgotten I'd written that article you've done amazing so I've done all my research but I laughed out loud it really really made me giggle I thought if we ever go on a trip together I'm booking her receipt and I'm booking her hand luggage and I'm booking her I'm sorry hold luggage my hand luggage so before we go into your travel secrets perhaps you can tell us a little bit about yourself and how travel has impacted you.

2:35Yeah so actually I was born in Epsom not far from where we're recording this podcast and when I was four my family up sticks and moved to the north of Ireland so we moved to just outside Derry and at the time it was quite an interesting place to live let's put it like that because it was still at the height of a sort of civil war and that felt like my first big travel adventure in a way because it was a completely different cultural background to exist in and immediately I felt like I didn't fully belong because I've always spoken with this very English accent and so I think I got a sense of exploring difference and how important travel can be from a very early age from that salutary experience and then growing up it was an era before cheap flights you know flight was a big deal and so actually our family holidays were spent in a place called port salon which was a beach a few hours drive from us and we would pack up and we got a little self-catering um there was a self-catering series of cottages around the beach and we would take our cat and build sandcastles and it was very it was very happy and looking back on it I'm very nostalgic for what feels like a much simpler time and then my mother again we were chatting before is actually originally Swiss and she was very very keen that her children so I'm one of two I've got an older sister would have broad horizons and languages and so from a young age she really drilled home the importance of that being able to connect with people no matter where they're from and when I was seven she took me and my sister to Paris for six months and we went to school in Paris and came back totally fluent in French and then that was a thing that we repeated again and again and when I was 12 I went to Russia and learned Russian and so I had lots of experiences like that where I think travel for me became something that was about understanding the world and how other people live in it so I've never been scared of travel but I think it's taken me a bit longer to understand the value of just a luxurious holiday where you don't have to learn a new language and you can just soak in the surroundings.

5:01I think for a long time my idea of travel was very much dovetailed with learning a language, learning kind of hard work, hard work in an interesting way but sort of adventure rather than relaxation and I then had a gap year when I was 18, 19 in between school and university and that was really the first time that I was able to curate my travel experience and I went and lived in Cape Town for six months, worked for an NGO there and I backpacked around Madagascar for a month. So those were all really really interesting amazing experiences some of which I will talk about today but that's sort of my background in terms of travel.

5:41I think I saw travel as distinct from holidays. Yes and actually it is because as you say if you go on holiday you just relax and have a good time it's very different from the one that you had when you were a child. Do you speak French and Russian now? I speak French. Russian I've almost entirely forgotten but I can remember a few things like I can remember to say how to say my name is, how are you? Do you speak Russian? Oh, you sound very Russian when you speak. Oh, thank you. My favourite word in Russian is which just means monuments or heritage. Oh, it sounds very romantic. Doesn't it? It sounds wonderful.

6:19It's like my favourite Italian word is which means stamps. Frankoboli. It sounds like spaghetti bonane. But it's so chic. You'll have to teach me a few words of Russian because my name is Russian Tanya. So everyone says, are you Russian? And I'd love to be able to say, yes, I am. So I need a few of those little tentances. I'll teach you. Don't worry. Let's get into your travel secrets. So what is the number one destination that you think everyone should go to once in their lifetime? Well, I'm not just saying this because I've just come back, but Egypt. I was blown away by Egypt. I had one of the best holidays I've ever had in terms of the culture, the experiences, the people I was with.

7:04I was with our dear mutual friend Trini. She had organised this extraordinary trip going down the Nile in a traditional boat. It was so stunning. But the thing that really blew me away was the history and the ancient quality of that history and how much of it you can still see. So you can walk across flagstones that are sort of 3 ,000 years old to get into the burial temple of Queen Hatshepsut, this female pharaoh who I knew nothing about, who has been lost to history in so many ways, as happens with so many women. And you can learn that she led these expeditions into nearby Somalia. And she insisted that she was represented as a man in statues because people weren't used to the idea of a female ruler.

7:52And all of that is still there. It's still around you, let alone the pyramids in Giza, 4 ,000 years old, being able to go inside a burial chamber. It's like this magical construction. It blew my mind and it made me realise how much of who we are comes from that origin story. And so that's why I think everyone should go there, because it really puts into perspective how we live now and essentially our insignificance. Because the Egyptian dynasties lasted for thousands of years, 7 ,000 years. So when you think about it, Cleopatra, who we all know of because of Shakespeare and Elizabeth Taylor, she is closer to our time than she was to the construction of the pyramids.

8:41So things like that just really, it really made me think and marvel at the world and also at how advanced the ancient Egyptians were. You know, they developed the calendar, for instance, that they developed this entire language of communication through hieroglyphs. And the fact that we can still see so much of it, I was just buzzing every single day. and then that beautiful light, that winter sunlight that you get. It was freezing and I packed really badly because in my head. You took captains. Yeah. I took breezy linens and sort of bikinis and I then wished I'd done what Trini did, which was basically just stuff her bag full of Uniqlo thermals because it was absolutely freezing, particularly in the morning and the evening.

9:28It got warmer the further south we went on the boat. But just the light, the quality of that light and being able to get sunshine in deepest, darkest British winter, I think it's left me really energised for the year. So I've come back feeling really invigorated. And also looking back on all that history makes you feel, as you say, wow. Yes. It's just amazing. Anything's possible, really. I just, I really did find it extraordinary. Your sub stack on Egypt is so fantastic. So anyone listening to this who does not subscribe has got to because you do how to do Egypt, basically. Yes. And, you know, all the history and everything.

10:05But it's such a great guide to Egypt and it's become such a popular destination, even though what's going on over in the vicinity, so many people are going. But it's quite scary because you think, well, where should I go and how should I go? And I think the boat is a wonderful thing to do. Absolutely. The boat was just so peaceful and beautiful. And basically what happens, we went for five days, five nights and we had New Year's Eve on the boat which is the best New Year's ever but you get this sort of sense of time passing in a very sort of slow moving fashion as you go down the Nile and you see sort of normal life along these fertile riverbanks and then you stop off every day and they provide a guide who then takes you to these tombs and temples or treks through deserts that wouldn't normally see and then you end up in Aswan and my one regret is that my husband Justin and I didn't have enough time to stay in Aswan so we never saw it so I just have to go back basically but I really do but we basically did Cairo, Luxor and then the boat and it was utterly magnificent and also I loved the people that we met there was a generosity of spirit and a humour that I really appreciated the food was great and even though as you're right it's a troubled region I had so many people when I started sharing pictures on Instagram and saying I just can't get over this country I had so many Egyptians saying thank you so much for showing our country in this way rather than how it's portrayed in the media yeah let's go on to your next travel secret what is your most unexpected travel experience I've actually got a few here oh good but I think I'm going to choose this one.

11:52So I used to be a staff feature writer for the Observer newspaper. And I occasionally had the immense privilege of getting to write a travel piece. And I got sent to the Caribbean island of Dominica. Oh, yeah. Not the Dominican Republic. Dominica. And they were just opening themselves up as an eco-tourist destination. And I thought, fabulous Caribbean. Yes, please. I don't know if you've been to no I haven't it's a really unique place it has a very strong energy I found and it's got volcanic springs and it's where Jean Rhys the novelist was born and raised and it's where she set part of her novel Wide Sargasso Sea and I think she really nails the atmosphere it feels sort of spiritual and sometimes a little oppressive it just felt like there was a lot going on under the currents of that island and at the same time it's got this beautiful lush vegetation and an incredibly healthy way of life it's I think it's famous for having the most number of people who've reached 100 oh really on that island because they have such a healthy lifestyle.

13:06So it was an extraordinary place. And I got to sample these new eco-tourist destinations. And one of them was built by someone who had moved to Dominica from Tennessee. And he had imported lots of Tennessee oak, I think it was, and built, I don't know why he'd imported the wood. Should have been red flag number one. Anyway, and he had built this sort of eco-tourist venue, but it wasn't completely finished. So there were no windows. So really eco. It was so eco. It was basically like backpacking. A tent. And I remember walking into my room and all of the fittings, the fixtures and fittings in the bathroom had rusted because it was right next to this volcanic spring.

13:48And there was just so much humidity in the air. But no windows. And no windows. And this smell of kind of rotten eggs that you get from a sulfuric spring. Anyway, this gentleman said, if you'd like to avail yourself of the spa facilities, you are very welcome. you know we offer amazing massages by the springs and he made it sound so great so I was like oh I'd love one of those tonight thanks very much and then I went down to the bar area at the allotted hour and he was there again I said oh I'm here for my massage he's like if you just go on down and I'll be down in a minute and he was doing the massage and before before he did the massage he gave me one of those sheets where it's like cross out anyway you're not comfortable being massaged and I was in that very sort of precarious British situation of wondering what I should do in order to still be polite but also have my back I was like should I cross out my vagina should I cross out my breasts was that like just taken as a given it was so awkward done like a triangle from here to here I know just from the neck up yeah neck and feet I know and then he he came down and he I think he insisted that I I completely disrobed myself and again now being older I wouldn't have done that and then I got on this massage table which was covered in sort of plastic sheeting to protect the actual table so it's deeply uncomfortable and so unrelaxing because essentially he was the sort of general manager and owner who'd greeted me and now he's made doing the cocktails at night yes so that was very unexpected that's hilarious did he put a towel over you I bet he didn't even you don't think he did start bullet naked for the whole thing it did it did teach me an important lesson about how people pleasing can actually get you into quite unsettling situations and that was something I needed to learn and nothing happened thank goodness and it was fine I mean it wasn't a relaxing massage but it was so unexpected and when you asked me this question that's the thing that first came up yeah well there are many lovely eco resorts now in the world and I'm sure I can send you to many of them thank you because it wasn't what I expected and you're actually going to go to one in Thailand in the summer aren't you yes I can't wait we're going to go to Kamalaya in Koh Samui which is fantastic yeah it really is I haven't ever been but so many clients and friends have been so that's a wonderful unexpected travel tale what is your most overrated or underrated travel experience oh okay I'm going to go overrated and I hope I don't offend anyone Hawaii oh interesting so I've had two experiences of Hawaii the first was I was living in LA at the end of 2015 and again I was still working for the Observer and I got a chance to go to Hawaii very briefly to go and interview a woman who can communicate with dolphins she's like a proper scientist she's amazing she's called Susan Casey shout out to Susan and because she lived on the island she showed me around and it was beautiful weather and I had the most amazing 24 hours with her and thought gosh if I ever fall in love again because I was going through a divorce at the time.

17:07And if I ever get married again, I want to come here for my honeymoon. So fast forward several years later, I do meet Justin and we get married, but we actually get married during the pandemic. So we can't go on honeymoon and it keeps getting delayed, keeps getting delayed. And then finally we have a chance to go somewhere and we choose to go to Hawaii. And I had such an image in my mind because of this experience I'd had with Susan years earlier and we got there and first of all the weather was pretty terrible it was really torrential rain several days and the days that it wasn't raining it was such a weak sunshine with quite a healthy breeze we were staying in this hotel that had looked it was a small hotel and it looked so nice online but actually they were very pleased with themselves for very little reason and it was just things like um you know we were paying quite a lot of money because it was our honeymoon uh it was just things like i love jasmine or green tea i don't drink coffee so i love that in the mornings and um they had some jasmine tea but then ran out on day two and they're like sorry we don't have any more and then that was it i didn't try and go it was nowhere else there was no more jasmine tea everything was served with so many micro greens and this makes me sound again like the travel monster we described in the introduction i also love avocado and toast what i hate is when someone makes it into a paste just have the avocado yes so it was i don't know the food was slightly disappointing and it also had a tiny pool and they blasted really loud music around the pool every single day and so it's just this combination of factors and then we did the um the route to now i can't remember i told you i can't remember anything it's described as one of the sort of informal seven wonders of the world and it's a driving route that you do and you see lots of amazing waterfalls when you go along this route but we did it and it was on a day that it was raining so it wasn't ideal right no but it was just you felt like you're going on a sort of dual carriageway with loads of traffic because loads of other people are doing the route and then occasionally you'd see a waterfall i was like I've seen waterfalls like this in Northern Ireland.

19:29That's just no point. Is it a bit like an Elvis film where you have all the American tourists? Yes, it was so busy. That was the other thing. It was unbelievably busy because I think we went in December. So high season. So many people were going away trying to get winter sun. So for whatever. And it was just lots of strip malls. And because it was so busy, it was incredibly difficult to get dinner reservations anywhere. I hadn't planned in advance. I didn't think we'd have to. but we actually should have booked like a month in advance to get the nice dinner places and so it just didn't turn out as we expected and I think it's vastly overrated having said that I've only experienced one part of it and I'm sure that the smaller islands and with better weather and if you have a local guide like Susan Casey if you meet someone who could just communicate with dolphins exactly then then I'm sure it's amazing actually it's interesting because Mini Driver was on the podcast last week.

20:21I need to go with Minnie Driver, I think is what we've realised. Because I really trust her. She's been on How to Fail and I thought she was wonderful and we went for lunch afterwards. And the way that she speaks about surfing and being at home in the water and that's why she loves Malibu. I completely, if she showed me around, I feel like I completely get it. And she would take you to the smaller islands and you'd go to the waterfalls behind, you know, where the ladies used to go and bathe and everything. That's what I wanted. I wanted like the cock you know that film Cocktail yes yes like Frolic in the Waterfall that's what I wanted but for some reason we just didn't see any of that and no Tom Cruise and no Tom Cruise although you were on a honeymoon so you weren't looking for Tom Cruise no no I had my very own although Justin loves Tom Cruise so he would appreciate that reference and Justin got ill as well so like he just wasn't that he wasn't sort of tip top condition anyway Hawaii for whatever reason great let's go on to your best meal let's talk about food and drink it's so important as far as travel is concerned as far as our lives are concerned where do you like eating what do you like eating where have you had your best meal cocktail let's just talk about food and drink oh thank you heaven i find it so hard to whittle it down because i love food and drink and i actually i don't have particularly refined tastes in food I just like really good food that can be quite that is simple.

21:50So I love an amazing Caesar salad. I and I love healthy food. I love sort of vegetables, even though I do eat meat as well. I love a great steak and some great fries on the side. Some a plate of salmon. Like that's that's me happy. I also like snacks. and so there's a there's a my favorite restaurant in London is the Dover and they literally have a snacks menu which is like lobster rolls and cheese on toast things like that love that so my favorite meals there's one in particular I want to talk about but my favorite meals generally are ones with friends yeah and very often on holidays and not when we go out there when we might be sharing a wonderful villa and we've all pitched in and we've just bought amazing local produce at the farmer's market down the road or foreign supermarkets which I'm obsessed with and we kind of open a jar of cornichons if we're in the south of France and we just oh my and have like little bits of saucy saun so those are some of my favourite meals and in my 20s I was very good friends with someone whose parents had sold their London home and bought a sort of dilapidated vineyard near Calcassonne and so we spent a group of us in our 20s we spent a lot of us on the holidays going to this vineyard and seeing it kind of being built up and some of my favourite meals are from there where Andrew my friend would just get an amazing piece of steak and put it on the barbecue and it and they were so fun and obviously there'd be lashings of amazing wines it wasn't Andrew Nichols no but his name is Andrew Nutter so it's Andrew N because I've got friends Andrew Nichols and his husband who did exactly that a vineyard outside and they've built the whole thing up again no this is yeah it's an amazing thing to have witnessed and they really did work very hard and now they produce great wine and it's um they're called chateau jacques and they do a great i mean andrew will hate it when i say this they they do a great rosé i mean that's not their best wine but i think it's great um anyway so those meals have a real place in my heart but I think my favourite meals of all time and there's two of them have taken place in Los Angeles oh right one of them was in the Chateau Marmont and that for me again is like perfect food truffle fries like just straightforward good burger good burger and I love the atmosphere I love the atmosphere of old Hollywood 1920s there's so much history in those walls and the reason I picked this particular meal and I can date it almost precisely it was September 2018 is because I was out there writing my book How to Fail and Justin and I had been dating for six months and he came out to join me for four days and we went for dinner at the Chateau Marmont and it's the first time we said we loved each other so that so I really remember that so and it was such a special beautiful meal and I was so happy and then the second one was also with Justin in Los Angeles which has a sadder context in that Los Angeles is like my spiritual home and I go back there whenever I can and I had we had chosen to do fertility treatment at the clinic there we chosen to do a round of egg donation I've had years of fertility issues and that round failed and we needed to do something that would make us feel like ourselves again.

25:20And Justin booked a table at the Sunset Tower Hotel. And he managed to score the most incredible table. And it was right next to a window in its own little corner of that, again, sort of historic chic restaurant on these velvety banquettes. and again we had an extraordinary meal because it started with an amazing martini which I hadn't been able to drink for months leading up to that point and then it was just really good simple food done so well executed with such grace by the staff and we had brilliant conversations and we really talked about what we saw happening next and how our future might look if we chose not to pursue more fertility treatment which is ultimately what we ended up doing and so again that's one of my favorite meals of all time because of what it represented and because of the heart with which I remember it yeah how wonderful and I'm absolutely I agree with you simple lovely food with great people yeah it's what it's all about I think when I had Ruthie Rogers on the podcast who I adore who owns the River Cafe you know she was talking about her best meal and it was when her and Richard were on the Ponte Vecchio or somewhere like that in Florence and they just had bread with olive oil and tomato smeared over it oh my gosh it just sums everything up to me you know the tomatoes taste like tomatoes yes and the olive oil I'm sure was absolutely superb so actually that's just reminded me sorry of another amazing good because I also love the River Cafe I think it does the best food in London um and it's an Italian I've got two Italian experiences.

27:07I love Italian food and I love Italy. And I first started going there as a teenager. I was so obsessed. I made my parents go on holiday to Italy one year. And I went to the travel agent because there was still travel agents there on the high street and picked up lots of brochures. And I did all the research. I was like, we should go here. It's Art Amino. And I remember this so vividly, Tanya. For£400, we could go. We got flights, a rental car, accommodation in this beautiful South Asian place for a family of four. wow so we went that was my first those were the days those were the days and I remember tasting gnocchi for the first time exquisite the first time I went to Venice was on an art history trip as a teenager and again I had pizza in Venice that was unlike any other pizza I'd ever tasted and then this summer just gone Justin and I did an amazing road trip which is another travel secret in that I highly recommend it it was so fun and that sense of forward momentum we did it from Brittany all the way down through France to Cannes, stopping off en route, then across the border to Italy.

28:11And we ended up in the Villa San Michele, which I think is one of the greatest hotels ever. So beautiful, really exquisite. Exquisite. And I ate a caponata that first night. What's a caponata? It's this sort of stewed vegetables, like aubergine, olives, capers, in this rich tomato sauce that is tangy. and sort of there's a sweetness to it but a vinegary quality it was so good oh good well when i go to the villa san michele i shall make sure i have that i'm salivating remembering it so you definitely have so lovely how wonderful i agree with everything you've just said oh i'm going to go to definitely go and order that when i go next to florence i will do and get a bellini there as well yeah and also one of my travel tips is if you go to venice is and you can't necessarily afford to go to harry's bar yeah you have to visit because it is the place to go but just sit at the bar and have a bellini and then you get the whole experience but if you want to eat at harry's bar then you have to ask for the table in the corner which is the number one table thank you for that hot tip hot tip okay for venice um let's go on to your best travel tip what's your best travel tip or your travel secret i think my best travel tip is last minute upgrades so i tend to book an economy flight yeah on i mean i i always book ba because just the points exactly and i found that if i book an economy flight and then a week even like a couple of days before I fly it will very often give an option for an unbelievably good value upgrade and I've done that successfully for the last I would say like four or five flights I've had yeah so for something like LA it makes a difference to me now like now in my 40s and I'm five foot eleven and LA the jet lag can be tricky to navigate it's so worth it for me to be able to spend that little extra on a last minute upgrade on the way back and then hopefully get some sleep yeah so that i think would be my top travel yeah i mean i i always will book a premium economy just to make sure yes but then that extra upgrade is always really worthwhile yes last minute to do and justin gave me a very good tip which is when you're confronted with the amount it is to upgrade uh divide it by the number of hours that you're on that flight because it will often end up being like£50 an hour, which obviously is an expense, and I feel incredibly privileged that I can do that.

30:59But it works out quite well, and the return on investment is pretty good. You're going to have less jet lag, and you're going to be able to get some sleep. I mean, when I come back from New York, I always go on the day flight. People say, oh, that's such a waste, but I love a day flight. I listen to podcasts, I watch films, and when you get back, it's time to go to bed, and you've stayed awake, because actually that night flight back from New York is a nightmare. It's only five hours. You don't get a chance. And you don't get a chance to sleep at all. I totally agree with you. I love a day flight.

31:27A day flight is my top tip. Justin's top tip, because he travels an enormous amount of work, is packing cubes. Yes, I know. And Trini, our mutual friend, is the most amazing packer. I said to her, please come and teach me because I watch all her travel videos. I still can't do it. Have you just seen? She's in New York at the moment. Yes, I know. I was like, how did you fit all of that into your hand luggage? How does she do it? Because I would have the same amount and have to sit on it and probably have to have two suitcases, and she does it in hand luggage. It's so impressive. It really is. We need actually to have a video of her giving us our own lessons.

32:02That's such a good idea. We really do need to do that. Trini. Trini, are you listening? Let's go on to your next travel secret. What is the most poignant travel experience you've ever had? I mean, you've told us about some amazing meals and the meanings behind those, But do you have another travel experience which is really poignant to you? Yes, I think I mentioned Port Salon and there's a poignancy to that because it genuinely does. You know, I was born in 1978, so my childhood holidays were in the 80s. So that was a time pre-internet, pre-smartphone, pre-cheap flights when we would literally just pile into the car as a family.

32:40And I remember it would be quite stressful for my mother because she'd have to do all of the shopping in advance for those two weeks that we were going. But there was something so beautiful and innocent about that. And I love those holidays. But I think the one that I would like to choose is Tunisia. So when I was at university, you know, we got those lovely long summer holidays. And so often I would go on a backpacking expedition. The first year I went to Mexico with my friend Alice. And the second year I went with my then boyfriend, Rich, to Tunisia. And we were there for three weeks. And it's, again, an extraordinary country.

33:19So much interesting history. So much great food. Got me very into couscous. Yeah, lovely. But the reason it's poignant is because Rich, sadly, is no longer with us. And I have so many amazing memories of him from that trip. and there was one particular incident which was actually quite scary, but we got through it together, and those kind of things are very bonding, and what that was was classic students, we were really relying on our Lonely Planet guide, and the Lonely Planet was our bible, and the Lonely Planet said it would be totally fine to take our cheap little rental car into the desert, and just like drive into the desert, and we had treated ourselves for one night, because we were doing it all on a budget, we treated ourselves to a slightly more expensive hotel that was in the middle of the desert and we're like oh gosh that sounds amazing let's go there the lonely planet says we can drive there it's going to take us an hour and obviously we got stuck and actually it was terrifying because we were headed into the desert barely any water because we were like the lonely planet said it was fine got two biscuits i remember in a packet um and we set off in the morning and then the heat gets very hot very quickly and as we were going in a lot of four-wheel drives were coming the other way, driven by locals saying, Are you mad?

34:38Don't go there. We were like, they're trying to get us... The lonely planet's as we can go. The lonely planet, exactly. The lonely planet's actually fine. Bye-bye. And then there was like about an hour's drive where we didn't see anyone. And we were following one route, I remember. And suddenly it split into several different paths that we could take. And there was no one around to ask them, no signpost. And we were like, well, let's just take this one. And then kind of half an hour into that, we got stuck in a sand bank and there was just desert everywhere there was nothing and it was around midday and I remember the the car becoming too hot to touch that's how hot it was it must have been about 45 degrees so the heat where you get sort of parched just by breathing in anyway we were both quite I was I was panicking and Rich had had a year in the army and he was so amazing in that particular crisis yeah he's like okay this is what we're going to do we're going to stay in the car for the rest of the day and when it's nightfall that's when we'll start walking back and we bought a rug from a look for you know classic and he was like well we'll shelter under the rug during the day and then we'll walk during the night he had it all planned out and I was like okay and we had a sort of hour where we were like this is I mean this might be it this might be it and I thought I'm just going to walk over that sandbank because I bet on the other side is this luxury hotel that would be way too racist yeah and I walked up and it wasn't there was just nothing there was more sad and that's when I started to really get anxious anyway to cut a long story short after about an hour in the car a four-wheel drive just came up over the horizon and I remember saying to Rich don't believe it it's a mirage it's a mirage it's not someone from Zulu coming to rescue us no luckily it was it was a Tunisian couple who had hired a local guide and they stopped for us and they managed to get the car out of the sand bank to tow us back to safety and they gave us an ice cold thermos of water and i've never tasted anything i've never drunk like it it was it was i mean thank goodness they helped us and uh and we made it out and so that's poignant for so many different reasons but it's a very clear memory and i adored rich and we both adored each other um and we split up in our early 20s and shortly afterwards he went to Iraq as a freelance journalist and he got killed by a sniper and that was an extraordinary tragedy for his family and loved ones and I miss him to this day so there's an added poignancy to any memory I share with him.

37:09That sounds absolutely amazing I've never been to Tunisia I love Morocco have you been to Morocco? I've only been to Tangier for the day from southern Spain got the ferry across and I'd really that's one place I really You want to explore Marrakesh and everything. So we look after the Royal Mansour, which is owned by the King, which is the most beautiful hotel you've ever seen in Morocco because it's all the best artisans from all over the country who've made everything. They've just opened in Casablanca, and they've just opened outside Tangiers. So I'm going. I haven't been yet. But apparently it's exquisite.

37:41Oh, amazing. And it's got an amazing spa there. So if you want to do a Moroccan trip to the most fabulous places, just let me know. They'd love to have you. Thank you. I'd love that. because I do I clearly love North Africa yeah there's something about it that I find so compelling and historical and yeah I mean I love lots of Africa actually I have to say yeah I love Africa too but I mean Africa South Africa and as I said I haven't been to Tunisia but it sounds very lovely do you know what I know I'm going back one but another unexpected experience I had was I went to Tanzania um I I won a journalism prize and I got a travel bursary and I'd always wanted, since I was a young child, to go and see wild animals.

38:23And so I went on safari in Tanzania, but I went on my own. And actually, it really brought it home to me that part of the joy of travel is having someone to share it with. You didn't do the out of Africa plane with Robert Redford over the big planes? No, the Serengeti, not yet. But it's a beautiful country. Then I went to Zanzibar as well, which, again, was a very special island. Yeah, very lovely. And I love South Africa. I think South Africa is fantastic. Love South Africa. I've actually, I've also been to Mali for work. I would love to go to Nigeria. I've only been to Kenya sort of as a stopover.

39:02Again, I'd love to spend more time there. Lots of people go to Kenya and there's an amazing place called Poponi, which is owned by a family and everybody goes there. And actually Liz Earl was on her podcast and she said, I don't even want to tell you my travel secret because I don't want everyone to go, but it is Poponi and it's an amazing place. Okay, good to know. So finally, I asked you to bring a photograph. Yes. That sums up travel or is an amazing photograph in the concept of travel and your life. Yes. Can you show us the photo and talk about it? Yes, it's on my phone. Let me just find it.

39:37It's in my favourites album, obviously. And it is actually from Egypt because I think it will remain one of the greatest trips I have ever done or will do. And it was really difficult to choose one, actually, because there were so many. But I wanted to choose one that really embodied so much of how I felt and what I've been talking about. So it's this one, which is me outside the Great Pyramid at Giza. And you can't tell it's a pyramid because it's a close up. So I'm just standing by these ancient blocks of stone that are 4 ,000 years old. And I'm feeling so free in that moment, which is why I'm posing the way that I am, with my arms flying open, face towards the sun.

40:26And I think it encapsulates so much of what I loved about the entire experience, which is the history, the feeling of perspective and the reignition of wonder. that this trip gave me. I'm so happy to hear that. And it takes us wonderfully onto the last thing, which is where next and what next, because you have so many amazing projects on the horizon. So tell us. Where next in terms of my job or where you're going and your job? Excellent. Well, very often the trips I go on make their ways into my books. So we went to Bali, was it last year or the year before last? And there's a whole scene in my new novels.

41:10Bali because I just I get very inspired by by place and so where next in terms of travel the place that I have always wanted to go to and I've never been to is Japan oh yeah and so we're thinking of of doing a proper Japan trip next year where like hopefully if we can we'll take a month off and sort of do it really properly so I'd love to do that um and where next professionally so I'm launching a new pod class which is a podcast master class under my production company daylight and it's called how to date and I'm co-hosting it with Mel Schilling who is a relationship expert who many of you will know from Married at First Sight and it's eight weeks that teaches you everything you need to know about dating it helps you cope with rejection it helps you love yourself first it's from two people who really know so it's me and Mel we both met our husbands online.

42:02Oh, did you? Interesting. Yes. Then there's more How to Fail to come. I mean, I'm very excited about the guests we've got coming up. And then I have a new novel out this autumn. So it's a busy year. A very busy year. And then we're sending you, I know you're going to Thailand and we're going to send you to the peninsula in Bangkok, which is absolutely wonderful. I cannot wait. And then there are many other places around the world. So let me know where you want to go. Thank you. That was so kind of you. It's been so lovely talking about travel with someone who really knows and is so passionate.

42:33It is a joy and delight. I've enjoyed every minute. I knew I would. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Travel Secrets. I'm loving making this podcast and want it to reach as many people as possible to build this community of fellow travellers. So please do subscribe on your favourite podcast app and share with a friend. I'll be back next week. And remember, this podcast might not change your life, but it might just change your plans.