My favorite place in the whole world is the city of Paris. to me, Paris stands at the frontier of every major category of travel - in food, art, theater, history, in so many different areas that I simply don't get tired of it.

I find, on my own travels, that the most depressing form of culture shock is experienced when you go into a country that is under the thumb of a dictator.

My favorite place that I've been to that most people haven't been to is the Golden Triangle in the northeast of Thailand, which is inhabited by people as if in the Stone Age, without any form of power, without running water, simply living in huts on stilts.

I always feel depressed when I go into a country under dictatorial rule.

If I tell a hotel I'm a travel writer, I can't get out of there without spending a few hours looking at every single room!

I'm somewhat antagonistic towards these various projects that charge $250,000 per person for the ability to be weightless for 3 minutes after being brought up from earth. I think there are such better uses for that money that i seriously question the ethics of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on space flights for extremely wealthy people.

Luckily you cannot get to the Golden Triangle in a bus. You can only access it on your own two feet!