In general, my advice is to seek out people and new ideas when you travel.

I regard Paris as a feast for the eyes, the senses and brain. It is a phenomenal city.

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.

At its best, travel should challenge our preconceptions and most cherished views, cause us to rethink our assumptions, shake us a bit, make us broader minded and more understanding.

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.

To travel best requires some time preparing for your visit to a particular location - that you don't travel anywhere without spending a few nights reading about the culture and history of the place you are visiting. This is what most of us don't do - we fling ourselves on an exotic destination hoping that someone will tell us what we are looking at, but by that time it's too late, and all the lectures and tour guides simply add to our confusion.

Once abroad, I eat one meal a day picnic-style: Ive learned that no mature stomach can tolerate an endless routine of rich restaurant meals.