Simon Calder, Travel Editor
The Travel Diaries
Holly Rubenstein
4.6 • 758 Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2020
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, I’m joined by the travel writer and broadcaster, Simon Calder. He’s TV’s travel guru, and the travel editor at the Independent newspaper, where he’s known as “the man who pays his way” because he doesn’t accept any freebies from the travel trade - and in this episode, he gives some great tips for travelling on a budget.
Simon’s got a great story because his first job was at Gatwick airport, cleaning planes and working on security, and the notion of simply travelling abroad while working there felt like a distant dream. Now of course, he spends his life travelling the world - and this episode includes such a variety of fascinating and unusual locations that this had to be a ‘long haul’ feature length episode.
Make sure you stay tuned for his all time favourites and hidden gems - there are some really interesting ones in there - I’m already dreaming up some travels from those.
Here’s a recap of the destinations mentioned:
- Swanage, Dorset, England
- Lake District, England
- Guernsey, Channel Islands, England
- Granada, Spain
- Skye, Scotland
- Isle of Wight Festival
- Aconcagua, Argentina
- Santiago, Chile
- East Berlin
- Tirana, Albania
- Cuba
- New York, USA
- Mumbai, India
- Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Costa Rica
- Pan American Highway - Nuevo Laredo, Mexico to Panama
- Mexico City, Mexico
- Puebla, Mexico
- Wahaca, Mexico
- Wuppertaler Schwebebahn, (Wuppertal Suspension Railway), Germany
- Tiraspol, Moldova
- The Azores
- Syracuse, Sicily
- Arctic Canada and Greenland cruise
- Caribbean cruising
- Alaska to Canada cruise
- Cuillin, Skye, Scotland
- Nepal
- Mt Vinson, Antarctica
You can follow Simon’s travels on his Twitter page, @Simoncalder - and tune in to his podcast which is on Soundcloud, it’s called Escape podcast.
Thank you so much for listening today. If you haven’t yet left a 5 star rating or a review, why not do so now! Your support is so greatly appreciated and most importantly, helps others to discover the podcast.
Don’t forget you can listen on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Castbox, Stitcher and pretty much all other podcast apps.
To find out who’s on next week’s show come and find me on Instagram, I’m @hollyrubenstein I’d love to hear from you.
And visit TheTravelDiariesPodcast.com for everything podcast-related.
This episode was produced by Holly Rubenstein
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Travel Diaries podcast. |
| 0:10.5 | I'm Holly Rubinstein. |
| 0:11.8 | I'm a travel journalist and editor. |
| 0:14.3 | And here each week I'll be speaking to a very special guest about their adventures around the world |
| 0:20.3 | and the travel experiences and destinations |
| 0:22.8 | that have shaped their lives. Today I'm joined by the travel writer and broadcaster Simon |
| 0:28.6 | Kulder. He's TV's travel guru and the travel editor at the independent newspaper, where he's |
| 0:34.8 | known as the man who pays his way because he doesn't accept any freebies |
| 0:39.1 | from the travel trade. And in this episode, he gives some great tips for traveling on a budget. |
| 0:44.1 | I spoke to Simon at the beautiful Kensington Hotel in London. He's got such a great story |
| 0:49.6 | because his first job was at Gatwick Airport, cleaning planes and working on security, |
| 0:55.1 | and the notion of simply travelling abroad while working there felt like a distant dream. |
| 1:00.4 | Now, of course, he spends his life travelling the world. |
| 1:04.4 | Make sure you stay tuned for his all-time favourites and hidden gems. |
| 1:07.9 | There are some really interesting ones in there. |
| 1:10.0 | As ever, all the |
| 1:11.0 | destinations mentioned by Simon are included in this episode's show notes. So let's hear from him now. |
| 1:20.8 | Simon Calder, welcome to The Travel Diaries. Thank you so much for being here. How are you? |
| 1:26.6 | Well, all good. It's never been a better time to be a traveller. And I think I can pretty much say |
| 1:32.0 | that that's been true all through my life. It's just been better and better. I mean, I can't |
| 1:36.8 | imagine how many places that we could potentially cover when it comes to your travel diaries, |
| 1:42.4 | but I'm looking forward to discovering some of them. |
... |
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