Want to know how to travel in style, just like the pros? We check in with frequent fliers to find out how often they fly, their favorite destinations and what they never leave home without.
Name: Torre DeRoche
Occupation: Writer and blogger
Hometown: Melbourne, Australia
Residence: Melbourne, Australia
College: Monash University
College major: Visual communications
Website: fearfuladventurer.com
Twitter: @torrederoche
Facebook: The Fearful Adventurer
Instagram: torrederoche
Pinterest: Torre DeRoche
Short bio: Torre DeRoche is the author of “Love with a Chance of Drowning” (Penguin/Hachette). Her second book, “The Worrier’s Guide to the End of the World” (Seal Press), is due out in September 2017. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, in The Guardian Travel and alongside Cheryl Strayed, Dave Eggers and Sloan Crosley in two Lonely Planet travel writing anthologies. In her spare time she writes horror stories—a compulsion she picked up from her father, who was a B-grade horror movie film writer.
How often do you fly? Not much these days.
How many countries have you been to? About 20?
How many continents have you been to? 5
Earliest travel memory: Sitting in a Balinese restaurant with my parents, eating the most delicious chicken satay while a strong trade wind blew off the water. I was six.
Favorite American city: New York. Or Salem. It’s a toss-up.
Favorite international city: Melbourne.
Least favorite country: I don’t know. Even terrible places are pretty fascinating.
I have no desire to go to: Outer space or the Mariana Trench. Too high/low.
Friendliest people in the world: Those people who hustle for Greenpeace donations on the street. They make me feel so very loved and so very fooled into monthly donations.
Country with the meanest immigration officers: Australia can be pretty unforgiving if you arrive by sailboat.
Favorite World Heritage Site: The Tasmanian wilderness.
Favorite airline: Qantas. I feel cozy when I’m being taken care of by mature age stewards.
Favorite aircraft type: Anything large and airborne.
Aisle or window: Window. I drool when I sleep, so it’s better for everyone this way.
Favorite airport lounge: They’re all a blur of vague, valium-tinged dreams.
Favorite U.S. airport: LAX—it’s got that post-apocalyptic/will-humanity-survive tension of a good TV show.
Favorite international airport: I bought some great earrings at KL.
Favorite hotel: After three weeks of walking through India following a pilgrimage in the steps of Gandhi, sleeping in hotels with fire stains on the ceilings and in random people’s homes, I stayed at the Swissotel Kolkata and washed a thick accumulation of dust and terror off my body. It was wonderful.
Favorite cruise line: After spending two years sailing the Pacific on a 32’ yacht, I’ve had my fill of oceanic travel, thanks. Fun fact: When you’re in a sailboat way offshore at night and you see a cruise ship go by, they look like chandeliers. Chandeliers that will crush you if you accidentally get in their way.
Favorite travel credit card: AMEX.
Favorite island: Toau.
Favorite beach: Mount Eliza, where I grew up. It’s quiet and sheltered, and dad’s ashes are there.
Favorite National Park: Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, Tasmania.
Favorite fancy restaurant: Nobu, for the miso marinated black cod.
Favorite hole-in-the-wall: If I told you I’d have to kill you.
Favorite airport restaurant: Any place that serves buffalo chicken wings.
Favorite bar: Any place with cold beer on tap that smells like old carpet.
Favorite fruit: Mangosteens.
Favorite food: BBQ Shapes. They’re a national treasure.
Least favorite food: Liver.
Drink of choice (in the air and on the ground): Red wine in winter, beer in summer.
Favorite travel movie(s): Into the Wild.
Favorite travel show(s): Tribe.
Favorite travel book(s): “A Walk in the Woods.”
Right now I am reading: “First We Make the Beast Beautiful.”
Top 3 favorite travel newsletters/magazines/blogs: nomadicmatt.com, legalnomads.com, unlikelypilgrim.com.
Favorite travel website(s)—besides JohnnyJet.com, of course! airbnb.com, scottscheapflights.com.
5 things you bring on a plane: Down jacket. Painkillers. Ear plugs. Noise-cancelling headphones. Books.
What do you always seem to forget? To eat when I’m busy.
What do you like least about travel? Getting from A to B. Which I guess is the “travel” part of it all, which I guess is why I don’t travel that much these days.
What do you want your loved one to buy you from an airport Duty Free store? Dior mascara pls.
Favorite travel app(s): Airbnb.
Most embarrassing travel moment: Getting my skirt caught in my handbag for an hour or so while walking solo around a small Spanish town. I didn’t realize until a random lady told me she could see my butt. Up until that moment I felt like a heroine in a yellow-tinged Woody Allen movie. I wish I’d worn better underpants that day.
I’m embarrassed I haven’t been to: A bunch of places in my home country.
Worst travel moment: Getting bitten by a snake in a Mumbai hotel room.
What’s your dream destination? A long hike in New Zealand.
Favorite travel charity: FLYTE, a charity created by Matt Kepnes.
Best travel tip: Eat the street food and always remember you’re a guest in somebody else’s culture.
