My Favourite Holiday David Fletcher

Brian’s World travel books author David Fletcher reveals his favourite holiday haunts to The Sunday Post.

“Nothing really gripped me travel-wise until after I’d left university and we went to France year after year. It was to inland France, places like Gascony that were away from the main tourist areas. I loved the Gallic charm, the food, the wine and, of course, the birds.

Having done France so much, as we were getting older we decided we should see other parts of the world. We went to Papua New Guinea, Madagascar, Guyana, Belize, Costa Rica and, latterly, Africa.

We were particularly keen on places not too encroached upon by mankind, jungles and deserts where wildlife was the main aspect. I think we’ve been to Namibia and Botswana seven times now and they’re perfect examples of our ideal destination.

Namibia is a very large country with few people where you don’t feel surrounded by the modern world. It’s beautiful and has some fascinating wildlife. You can also see exposed geology that helps you begin to understand just how old the world is.

The north of Botswana in particular is just heaven on earth and you feel sheltered from some of the awful things going on in the world. If you go to national parks in either country you really get away from it all. We’re lucky enough not to have to rough it.

In Botswana we have a friend who runs a safari company who rents us one of his Land Cruisers and we drive ourselves around various lodges and camps.

Most of the adventures we’ve had have been to do with losing our way as we prefer to travel on our own. But we have had a few interesting wildlife encounters.

I remember having to radio from our tent in Zambia to ask to get taken to the dining tent because we were surrounded by elephants! Thankfully those sorts of things have been more charming than threatening.

So much of the food we’ve had has been exceptional, a lot of it being more Mediterranean than the local type of food you might expect.

Zambia is probably the best place for food ever, cooked out in the little camps in the middle of nowhere. One of the Brian books is about Syria.

We were there in 2010 before all the awful current troubles began. The people were very nice and the archaeological remains were amazing. But you did get this underlying feeling of it being a police state.

We’d turn up at little lagoons to look at birds and before long a car would arrive with two guys in badly-fitting suits to see what we were doing. We’re now seeing places we visited in ruins on news reports. It’s absolutely desperate.