1. Describe your ideal travel buddy. What trait in a traveller do you like the least?

• My wife - great fun and really knows how to have a good time on the road.
• Ignorance certainly isn’t bliss when it comes to your travel buddy, nor is frugality – interesting how the two often go together.

Pictured left: Martin Kelly

2. What’s your favourite travel food? What do you sinfully eat on the road you’d otherwise avoid at home?

I have no favourite travel food – and I eat everything at home so can’t help you there. What I can reveal is that Thailand, France and Italy are my favourite food countries. Also I’ve got a new travel rule – never visit a country that doesn’t have a decent local cuisine, borne out of some very disappointing meals on a recent break at Yasawa Island Resort in Fiji.

3. Describe your most memorable airport experience.

None, they’re all forgettable, although there was that time – travelling standby on staff tickets – when my wife and I got bumped from the final flight to Sydney and had to sleep overnight on the seats at Brisbane Airport. Think I’ll try to forget that.

4. If you could spend Sunday in any city you’ve been to, where would it be? What would you do?

Good question with no easy answer. I’ll go for Madrid – check out the Prado then spend the rest of the day and night crawling the bars and restaurants around Plaza Mayor. Nice, where I went for the first time this year, would also be an excellent option: beach in the morning, long lunch, siesta, evening promenade then maybe a trip down to Cap d’Antibe for a sunset dinner.

5. What’s the one thing you can’t help but shop for when travelling.

Paperbacks at airports.

6. Name the best outdoor holiday you’ve had.

Hard question – several trips stand out: 1) two months surfing in Europe in the late 1980s; 2) six-week road trip chasing waves from Sydney to South Australia in mid 1980s, 3) couple of weeks in Aspen last year with family, 4) two weeks travelling around and checking out the animals in Africa with a group of Aussie travel agents and media that got crazier by the day.

7. What is one “Big Travel Experience” you intend to have within the next five years.

I’ve given up having “Big Experiences” – they can be disappointing given the expectations - I just want lots of little ones.

8. In six words, describe the way you pack for a trip.

Last minute panic with some logic.

9. Name a musical act you’d travel across the world to catch – and the venue you’d like to see them play at.

Sex Pistols anywhere – witness a slice of history.

10. If you could travel with three historic figures, who would they be and why? Where would you all go?

Explorer James Cook, author Mark Twain, Hawaiian surfing pioneer (and Olympic swimming champion) Duke Kahanamoku. We’d recreate Cook’s travels through the North and South Pacific.