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From book inspired readaway adventures, to smart bookings, stick around to find the top six must visit destinations that we reveal at the end of this episode.

We're here with travel writer and author Sue Williams and stays. Beck Hurley, welcome. We're going to talk about travel destinations that have inspired you, because the world is literally at our keyboard, and new data from Stayz shows that where we want to get away to is often places with loved ones and books. I mean, who would have thought the places that let us read, relax and connect with others, no phones, no scroll are kind of topping the list. So Beck I wanted to dig into what's behind this? Can you tell us a bit about this data?

Bec  1:42  

Yeah, so every year, Expedia group runs a global study that predicts the travel trends for the upcoming 12 months. It's called Unpack. And through that study, a trend that's coming through really, really strongly is that even though the world's speeding up, people are really wanting to take holidays where they slow down. They're, you know, immersing themselves in destinations and actually scheduling rejuvenation, which sounds a bit counterintuitive, but, you know, making sure you're not doing an action packed itinerary and you're popping in some time to really relax. And what Stayz saw was there's this real trend towards readaways. 

ALEX

So interesting

BEC

So book inspired getaways. And, I mean, who doesn't love a good read? But essentially, what they're seeing is that reading is the reason for the trip. And so people are, you know, going away with a book club, a group of girlfriends or their families, and taking time to really relax, and popping your nose in a book was a really great way to do that. Interestingly, when you look at the reviews on the stage site, the reading is coming up in our reviews three times more than it was before. 

ALEX

We love that

SUE

Absolutely

So people are ready jumping on the trend. They might be taking one of Sue books, but over 55 there's 88% of them are saying they want to take this type of trip. And if you look at women, that's even higher. You know, I think we all want a little get away with our girlfriends, and it's really relaxed and comfy. You can pop your nose in a book and, you know, there's no airs and graces. You can leave your jammies on, and it's a really nice way just to feel relaxed and

Alex Brooks  3:14  

I think it's a really heartening trend. And Sue, I mean, you are one of Australia's best writers. 

SUE

That’s very kind

ALEX

You write everything from historical fiction to travel to true crime to property to nearly anything. And I've certainly, I've known of your work ever since I was first looking at you. I think you came out, was it with new weekly or who weekly? Anyway, you came to our shores, and I've watched your stuff with relish. Now, if you had to nominate just one great place to read and relax, what would it be?

Sue Williams  3:50  

Well, I've tried lots of different places to read and relax, because I read a lot, as you know, and I write a lot, but quite recently, I came across the very best place. What was it before somebody lent me a cottage in the middle of nowhere, and they said that would be great. And I thought, this would be fantastic. I lasted two days. It was so dull, there was no stimulation, and I can't cook, so I had to kind of think, what am I going to eat all the time? So that really didn't work. But the thing I've just discovered is cruising. I've never been a great fan of cruising, but actually, I've discovered that a cruise ship is the perfect place to read, relax and write as well, because you've got this wonderful background going past all the time, these amazing views, and you can usually get a great place on a ship to sit and write on a computer, and it's just wonderful. And you get fed all the time. You get good coffee, you get everything done for you. And whenever you want to get off the ship, you can, and you can go in exactly places, but you don't have to. And I mean, it's quite hard. As a travel writer, you think, I've got to get out, I've got to see all the sights, but sometimes you think, no, I'm not going going to I'm going to stay on the ship. It's going to empty, it's going to be wonderful. I'm going to have it to myself, and I can just sit here quietly and read or write.

Alex Brooks  5:00  

So interesting, because some of the best mysteries have been set on ships as well. 

Sue Williams  5:04  

You do think that too, yeah, but you kind of think, well, I wonder if a cruise ship company would sponsor a murder mystery. And then you think, probably not.

Alex Brooks  5:11  

Well, I think we spoke about this in one of our other podcasts, that cruise ships, they do have morgues on board because, well, they do this. Terrible things can happen on a cruise ship

Sue Williams  5:20  

Recently, I was invited on a Cunard cruise. It was just one down to Hobart and back again, and that was a literary cruise. It was their first ever Australian literary cruise, and it was fantastic. There was about 10 of us writers from Britain and from Australia and New Zealand, and we talked to a really engaged audiences all the time, because they've got a big amphitheater on their ship. It's a Queen Elizabeth, and there were 800 people at a time, and more were standing other people were in bars where, wow, and everywhere you went on this ship, people reading books. It was just, it was, it was like a

Alex Brooks  5:58  

different dream come true from

Sue Williams  6:01  

we all loved it. And then Cunard said they're not going to come to Australia anymore, because of the dollar and because our exchange rate, bring the ships over here. So I think a number of people are trying to get other cruise lines to maybe adopt to come and do the same thing. 

Alex Brooks  6:15  

Oh, that's so interesting. So Beck, because we can book travel at the click of a mouse, and because we can scroll our phones and keep up with anyone you know on this sort of digital surface. Tell me why you think we're trying to digitally detox when we go on holidays.

Bec  6:33  

What's this about? I think, look, our lives are so full of of digital stuff and stuff, and I think that people are feeling tired. I think, you know, we're feeling a little bit burnt out, and I think we are recognizing the value of rest and reset, and it's hard to do that when you're, you know, working, running around after families. You know, it's hard to fit that in. But I also think people are starting to travel with intent and with purpose and really interesting. They're really prioritizing connection with their family, with their friends, taking it outside of the home, so you've not got any other distractions. And then, you know, prioritizing things that you love. And I think Readaways is such a good example of that. Like, I love curling up with a book, but it's really hard to find time to do that before I go to bed. And then, you know, I drop my Kindle because I've fallen asleep while I'm reading. Like the luxury of a couple of hours to read in the middle of the day is, it's what dreams are made of.

Alex Brooks  7:29  

Yeah, I agree, because it does reset the mind right now. Sue. You travel and read and write all the time, I guess what I really want to know is, how much do you try to write every day? Do you have a word count? And do you do it when you travel?

Sue Williams  7:48  

I don't have a word count every day, but I do tend to write every day because I have so many deadlines. Without deadlines, I wouldn't write word really, but I have book deadlines, or I have story deadlines that I have to hit, so I tend to write most days, and it's when you're traveling. Sometimes it's fantastic to actually write a piece when you're in situ, when you're in the place, and you can kind of look around and you can feel the atmosphere. But often you just don't really have time because you're doing too many things. So you end up back home with eight travel stories to write, and that can be really oppressive, because you've had such an amazing time, you've seen such fabulous sites, you've met such incredible people, and then suddenly you have to try and distill that down into a story. And you kind of want to make you want to, you want to do it right. And sometimes it's you become really anxious about whether you're going to make it an experience as it really was,

Alex Brooks  8:41  

Because that's the art of travel writing. You are in most weekend newspapers with your travel work, and you're part of the Association of travel writers. Am I right? What does make a good travel story in, you know, a newspaper or an online story, tell us about that  

Sue Williams  8:57  

So many different things, really. I mean, I always, you know, with the legend, with with old media, you'd always think it was the reader could imagine themselves in a place, and then they could they could smell the place. They could feel it. They could feel the atmosphere. You kind of transport them. And I think readers like that because they might be planning to go there one day, or they might it might be just vicarious travel, yeah, but these days as well, there's all these different reasons for people reading a story. I wrote a story that was in yesterday's paper about a review of an airline of a premium economy flight, and I thought it was absolutely atrocious, and that story became the top rating story of the day, more than any other news stories, which is amazing to me. So people want to read quite different things. And people want to read about flying. They want to because we all fly. We have to get to these places. So people are really interested in those kind of things. So sometimes it really surprises me the things that people are really interested in, because before you wrote a travel story, you did it the best you possibly could, and you had no idea how. How it landed, really. But now people come back to you and say, well, that one didn't do very well.

Alex Brooks  10:07  

You really want to know is sometimes the answer to that, isn't it? Do 

Sue Williams  10:11  

You think they've done the best story you've ever done? And they say, oh, not many people read that. You think, oh, you've absolutely crushed.

Alex Brooks  10:16  

So who knows? I think the Premium Economy one is so interesting, because I think people begrudge paying that little bit extra when it's not premium at all.

Sue Williams  10:26  

Yeah, maybe, right. And this was an airline that other people have said before is not a great airline. Ah, okay, so I think a lot of people were quite interested in piling on to this airline.

Alex Brooks  10:37  

I know the trolling and the sides and the black and white nature of online discourse is probably one of the reasons people like going to books.

Sue Williams  10:47  

That's right, 

Alex Brooks  10:49  

because a book is a much longer journey into a narrative or a place or whatever, and your stories are so interesting you write about interesting people you've written about, you know, the terrible Outback murders you've you write beautiful historical fiction where you bring history to life, which I really enjoy, because Australian history is just a little passion of mine. I loved it when I was at school, and it's just really great to bring you know Australian history is not sort of known national internationally for being particularly interesting, given you know that we've ignored our indigenous past, and it's all colonialism and you know, but, but you, you touch on those issues in your fiction, and you and you can bring the characters to life in a modern way. I guess what would be interesting for me as a writer to understand is, do you have to go to the places where you're writing historical fiction to bring them to life?

Sue Williams  11:45  

I think it really does help, because it brings an extra edge to it. If it sounds as if you really know what you're writing about, occasionally you can't get to a place. I did a book that was set in Ethiopia, and I'd been to Ethiopia, but I was about to go back when covid hit back and interview everybody. And so I ended up doing a lot of the interviews on Zoom, and it was really hard in a different language, mostly at midnight because of the time difference. And we had an interpreter who I found really hard to understand because he had a really strong accent, and he found it really impossible to understand me. So it was just really, really hard. But generally, I think it's great to be able to go to those places, because it just adds an extra something to the book, and it makes it sound really much more authentic. Because I think readers actually can tell whether you're trying to fool them or not, or whether you're being authentic and

Alex Brooks  12:36  

real. And so when you go to a place, what do you look at first is a detail to bring to life.

Sue Williams  12:43  

Hopefully, I've got an idea of the kind of story I'm writing. So then I will start looking at the landscape, and I will start looking the buildings, and I'll look at the trees and the foliage and the plants and the I mean, the other day, I'm just work starting work on a book about the Macarthurs, and I went up to Hambledon cottage in Parramatta, yeah, and I had a look all around there, and they showed they had a great tour that they took me on, fantastic. And it was just all the tiny little details of the piano that they had in the lounge room that the Elizabeth MacArthur used to play very badly, apparently, that kind of stuff, just all these little things. And you think this is gold for us, because I can include all those little details, and it's they always say the devil in the detail, but just, is it? Just? It's great to be able to assemble those God also lives in the details too. Yes, oh yes,

Alex Brooks  13:32  

it's very good phrase. And the MacArthur's, for people who aren't familiar, were Australia's first big pastoral That's right, pastoralists, colonialists, conquerors of their land. And John MacArthur took all the credit, right? Absolutely, but his wife actually did all the work, yes?

Sue Williams  13:48  

Well, he was over in Britain,

Alex Brooks  13:52  

Commons new Yes, but, and you do bring her to life in a really interesting way in your books, because she was, she got no credit. And I think he's on that, he was on the $2 note was, that's right, ‘

‘SUE

yeah, that's absolutely right. And she actually was left alone for years at a time, running this sheep empire, yes. So the phrase Australia, you know, got rich off the sheep's back, or, which, I've probably muddled that up, that was due to the MacArthur's

Sue Williams  14:15  

Absolutely That's right. And it's interesting, because she ran the wall Empire for so many years, when he was over in Britain, facing court martial, because he was number of he wasn't true colonialist, wasn't he? That's right. But when he came back, he said, Okay, that's it. I'm taking back over. And you think, Wow, all that works you did. And then he just suddenly says, You can't make any more decisions. Just, wow. I know would that have been

Alex Brooks  14:39  

Yeah, I think that's why historical fiction is so interesting, is because women do get to put themselves in other people's shoes. And we think we've got it tough now with scrolling and picking up kids and looking after elderly parents and all the things that we've got. But you know, I don't think there's ever been a pleasant era for women, really. No,

Sue Williams  14:58  

absolutely. For convict women, migration women is really, really even much, much harder.

Alex Brooks  15:04  

Those indigenous female stories are absolutely incredible. But, I mean, my mum ran a motel down in Tasmania for a while, which was one of the colonial towns in the middle of Tasmania, and there's a there was a female factory down there. I mean, just the very term female factory is so disgusting. But the worst thing is, when you're in Tasmania and you realize they didn't have Kathmandu polar fleeces or long johns, these convict women were wearing barely any clothes in a place that's utterly freezing cold, absolutely it would have just been awful. Yeah. So anyway, let's get back onto this. So Beck, tell me what sort of tips you think people can sort of look towards to help find those unique places where they can connect off grid and maybe read a book and relax.

Bec  15:53  

Yeah, so I think, look, we talked about it before traveling with intent and purpose. So if you are wanting to read and relax, schedule some time like make sure you're scheduling it in, because if you don't, you'll end up with a jam packed itinerary. You'll move the chaos to a new location, and you won't actually get to relax. But I also think the way that you choose where you go is really important. So through this trend that we're seeing, some people are picking a genre of book. Some people are picking a particular book. So one we've seen come through really strongly is nine Perfect Strangers by Leanne Moriarty. So you know, those health retreat vibes, perhaps with a little bit less drama than anything, that book is a good idea. Let's really hope so. But also, when you're picking the property, like making sure it's in a beautiful place, like, you know, a mountain cabin, a beach house, somewhere where you've got a beautiful outlook, make sure the facilities have got spots to read. So, you know, a nice outdoor area, a couple of Sun lounges, some really great, comfy couches that you can curl up in. And I think, like, if you go with your book club or your girlfriends, like places that you can entertain. You know, we all talk about the kitchen, and cooking at home can be a bit a bit monotonous, but when you're out with your girlfriends and you're all in the kitchen, in your jammies with your bare feet, like that's such a lovely way to commit, yeah. And the other thing is, you're probably not going to read all day, and if you do want that really relaxed, get away, like looking at the other amenities that like, if there's a pool or a spa, if there's some beautiful walks around, like, if you think of Byron as the example, like that lovely walk up to the lighthouse, beautiful this time of year is great for the whales. So just, you know, finding those other little bits of joy in there. So have you reading for your joy and a couple of other little bits and pieces to get you along?

Alex Brooks  17:38  

Okay, that's interesting, yeah. And I one of the things I used to edit CHOICE, the consumer groups, masthead, and one of the things that they did really well was they helped contribute to the Smart Traveler website, which the Australian government now runs and keeps it very up to date. Now, when I was young and backpacking around the globe, we didn't have this news in real time, right? You had to write home with an aerogram. Do you remember those light blue things that would cost hardly anything? And then you'd look them together, and they'd be an envelope and letter all in one or a postcard. That was the only way you could keep in touch when I was young. No, I'm giving away my age now, but now, everything's at the speed of light, right? If you're booking, if you can't go to Ethiopia, it's because it's been up on the Smart Traveler website, flights have been canceled. You know, you can find out about it pretty much instantaneously. That sort of news didn't happen decades ago, and it was one of the reasons we liked to travel, was to find the surprise, right? It was to it was to see something we hadn't seen before. And I guess there's just, it's just so new, the way we can hop on a plane like right now, we could sit with a laptop in front of us and book something tomorrow if we wanted to. I mean, that was unheard of. It sounds like we're talking about ancient history. You know, when I booked my first overseas trip at the age of 19. I had to go to a travel agent. I had to save up for like, a year to book the airfare, and you looked through brochures, and actually all I had, because there were no smartphones, was like, a let's go Europe book when I was backpacking around Europe, and all the map pages were torn out so that I could just carry the map with me absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, something that I read about from a travel writer hack was that people now can go, Okay, well, I'm landing in a destination actually, just for random surprise. I'm just going to drop a pin and see what's around me and just go to something random, and you're like, it's so interesting that people are trying to find what used to be random. And I think that's all part of it. And so so you are always overseas, hopping around and obviously in your own office, writing. But what has. Been a place that's inspired you to read that you visited, besides a cruise ship, like, what's a location that you've read?

Sue Williams  20:09  

I really love Western Australia. Oh, that's so interesting. And because it's got such amazing landscapes, you know, you've got the white sands of the South red red rocks of the Kimberley and those incredible old landscapes. And I really loved reading dirt music there. Oh, you know Tim Winchester

Alex Brooks  20:27  

books set there, because Tim Winton is a wa based

Sue Williams  20:31  

and he he writes a lot about wa as well. Yeah. So I loved being in WA and reading dirt music and also listening to the soundtrack of dirt music as well. You didn't know that there was a soundtrack. Yeah, no, it's fabulous. Oh, really. Well, that was a great experience. The whole thing together. Oh, that's so interesting, because

Alex Brooks  20:51  

ABCs Radio National has just released its top 100 books list. I don't know if you've seen that, but not all of them are Australian, which is probably normal, but they boy swallows universe was the number one book, and that kind of makes me laugh, because it's like suburban Brisbane, right out of suburban Brisbane. And if anyone's watched the Netflix series based on the book, you kind of go, it's not that Scenic. You wouldn't really want to retrace instead, no, but the book that was number three on that list is a Gentleman in Moscow, which is, oh, I don't know if everyone's read that book, but I seen the TV. I haven't watched the series because I love the book so much. That book just talk about transporting you to a time and a place, and it really is a great example of a historical fiction, because it's about a guy who was from sort of the upper class Russian family during during the Russian Revolution, and he was literally imprisoned by the communists in a Grand Hotel. And he it's a fantastic story. Just brings that whole time period to life in a whole new way. And then there's also the Book Thief, which is an Australian book that's set overseas. So we do a lot of Australian writers don't always write about Australia, and it's the British writers like you and maybe Jane Harper, another crime writer, she writes about Australia as well. There's an Adelaide writer called Hannah who has written burial rights about Iceland. She's done historical fiction in Iceland. So there's an array of Australian books that are set overseas as well. So it seems our authors like travel and write as

Sue Williams  22:35  

well. It's nice to be able to spread your wings, really, but it's also nice to be able to write about Australia. It's funny, I talk a lot of functions about writing, and the last function I went to, they asked me what was my next book, and I told them, because it's actually based in Britain. And they were all kind of like, oh, really, where's the next Australian? One Australian, one afterwards. So you kind of

Alex Brooks  22:58  

never know. You never know where thinking, because your next book is based on the Duke of Wellington. What's

Sue Williams  23:03  

that? That's right? Oh, it's a weird story, really, but there's a legend in our family that we're descendants of the Duke of Wellington, okay? And my father's always talked about this, because it was a story passed down by his father, passed down by his father, okay? And I've never really taken much notice, but I was, I've been listening to him a bit more, and I did the family tree, and we discovered that my great, great, great great grandmother was a maid in the Duke of Wellington's household who mysteriously became pregnant. Nobody knew who the father was. She was never kicked out of the house, as most servants would be, and he looked after her and her daughter in the house for evermore, and which kind of maybe suggests, so I decided to write a book about that. And so the Duke secret is the book out in February, and there's a contemporary narrative about a woman in Australia. So this is an Australian angle investigating the link, which is kind of loosely based on me, and then the Duke and the maid, and what happened to them, which is, you know, basically, we don't really know if he was the father or not. When I went back to Britain a couple of years ago, I met some university friends, and I was telling them I needed some DNA from the Duke of Wellington's family. And one of them said, well, actually, I sit next to him in the house of lords who would know. I said, Can you get some DNA? She said, Yes, get out. And then her husband stepped in, who's a barrister. He said, that's highly legal. You can't possibly do that. Oh, so he really wrote consent, though you need consent. Yeah, ask. Well, so I wrote him a letter, and she gave him the letter, and then he never replied. Oh, when I wrote another letter to his niece, come on, his niece, who's a writer, and she wrote back, and she was very pleasant and said, but for personal reasons, I'm afraid I can't give you my DNA. I mean, you know a stranger asking for DNA, and we're well, it's very story, illegitimate. They're very rich, exactly, stalky, so, um, so we can't prove definitively or not, but I've written a book of. About it.

Alex Brooks  25:00  

So, oh, well, I hope one day they watch this and say, Oh, I wish I'd given the DNA so we could find out for sure whether that mystery can be solved.

Sue Williams  25:07  

My father was saying, Well, why won't they give the DNA? They'd be really thrilled that then have family in Australia. I'm saying, I don't think so. Dad really, and his best friends were King Charles. He's not really interested in

Alex Brooks  25:18  

us. But still, it's kind of fascinating, right? It's how we make new discussions and make new information, right, by getting new things. And so what books do you like? Beck, when you have to curl up with a book, what's one you enjoy?

Bec  25:33  

I love lots and lots of books, and I like to travel. So I do really like that kind of angle of like a book that will inspire you to travel or inspired to read by traveling. But one I read recently that I really loved was the women by Kristin Hannah, and interesting that you were talking about, like history from the perspective of women. So it's set in the Vietnam War, and it's about the nurses that were over in the war. And it is fiction, but, you know, I love sort of learning about that angle of the walks. It's not something that you hear historically reported on a lot, but it also reminded me, like Vietnam, it's a stone's throw away. I haven't been and you know, when you were talking about your process of writing, like that really rich description of the destination, I was like, That sounds amazing. And then there's that incredible history and culture there as well. So that was one that kind of ticked my list and my travel list, yeah, because

Alex Brooks  26:29  

Vietnam is a really popular destination. Same with Japan, a lot of Australians. I mean, when I was young, we all were obsessed with either Europe or America. Now my kids do not want

Bec  26:40  

to go. They're real up and coming destinations, like they're ones we're seeing a lot of people are really gravitating towards, and I think, you know, Europe is a slog, like, it's a long flight, and so, and you need to spend a long time there, because to make that flight worthwhile. And so those closer destinations, and you get that incredible cultural experience. And it's, you know,

Alex Brooks  27:01  

well, Vietnam is meant to be fantastic because you have the French colonial influence, and obviously there's all this war history there as well. I mean, we've done a couple of travel stories on Vietnam for Citro and incredible places to see that. You've got coastal, you've got inland, you've got really vibrant food culture, because food is another big thing that we like to experience when we go away food and reading

Sue Williams  27:28  

Graham greens, an American in Vietnam, which is fantastic, and many of the buildings he describes in that book is still around now. Fantastic. There's lots of tourists who go to the bars where he went to drink and stuff, and it's, Oh, great. They're living that. And they kind of dress in the white.

Alex Brooks  27:45  

Oh, that's so cute. Yeah. And what about you? What books have have brought destinations to life? Most in your mind, Sue books have you enjoyed?

Sue Williams  27:54  

Um, gosh, it's hard. There's so many, I think there is, yeah,

Alex Brooks  28:03  

I think one of the, I think one of the really interesting when I was a child, I thought that every place I read about was a magical destination. And I just remember, because I'm showing my age again, Enid Blyton's fantastical stories. I really wish the magical faraway tree

Sue Williams  28:19  

was a place, sure? Because here in Ireland, yep.

Alex Brooks  28:23  

And in my mind, all these places were real, right? And it's only when I grew up that I realized you couldn't visit them. It was so unfair.

Sue Williams  28:31  

There's probably a Narnia world, somewhere in America where you can go, there

Alex Brooks  28:37  

would be a lot of, a lot of homestay type places now, do theme themselves around stuff. I think there's some really classic like, you can stay in, you know, aircraft sort of moored at the end of a property. And you can stay in, you know, castles and what are some of the others, hangers. And I think some people have converted wheat silos into accommodation. You know, you kind of can end up going into some bizarre kind of place

Sue Williams  29:04  

that's right travel these days. And I thought of my, one of my favorite books that always really inspired me to travel was the old Patagonian Express Paul through and I just loved Paul through his travel books. I wasn't so keen on his novels. Yeah, I loved his travel. Was the Great Railway

Alex Brooks  29:20  

Bazaar, okay? Because he brings a place to life

Sue Williams  29:24  

absolutely and that made me really fascinated by travel and by writing as well. And that really inspired me all the time. And, you know, I went to Latin America, and spent a year and a half there traveling around and went to many of the places that he'd been. And just loved that. And I had gone to Africa a lot. I read a lot of books about African explorers, you know, white explorers who discovered, oh, yeah, narrative. I was always fascinated by that as well. And those were the kind of first places I went when I was traveling, because I think we're in Australia. You go to. Asia first. And in Britain, we tend to go around Europe or Africa is a great destination. And I spent many years in Africa traveling around. Is there any place you haven't been? I guess many places. I've never been to Senegal, and I've never been to Guinea Bissau, and I'd love to go to

Alex Brooks  30:18  

West Africa. West Africa is on your hit

Sue Williams  30:20  

list Absolutely. I think next year, definitely. Oh,

Alex Brooks  30:24  

okay, where else is are you still longing to go to because I really do feel like you've been everywhere, man,

Sue Williams  30:30  

I haven't. I haven't. I'd love to go the Philippines. I've never been to the Philippines. Ah, that's a really up and coming destination as

Alex Brooks  30:37  

well. Interesting. What about you? What's on your must

Bec  30:42  

visit so many places. Africa is actually one for me. I would love to do a safari. I think that would be incredible. And I've spent a little bit of time in Northern Territory, and I would say that is probably one of my favorite holidays that I've ever had. So I would love to go back there and explore some of the places that we didn't get to see. I think it's easy to forget that we've got, like, world class destination in our backyard and Western Australia as well. I want to, I want to swim with

Alex Brooks  31:12  

the whale sharks. Well, I really want to do that too. That's near where Tim Winton writes from, up near Exmouth. So absolutely, I really want to go there

Sue Williams  31:20  

swimming with the whale sharks. And have

Alex Brooks  31:22  

you done that? Yes, of course you have dolphins. Have you done that?

Sue Williams  31:27  

Yes, yes, but I it's just because I did a series of books about the Outback. I was asked, and I said, I'm not really an Outback person. I've only lived in cities. And they said, no, no, you're the perfect person to do so I ended up doing a series of books about the Outback, and one of them was a travel book about the Outback. And I kind of threw myself into doing horrible things like cattle droving, boxing in the boxing tent and all this stuff. And it was because I was desperate to make the book not too boring, to make it entertaining at the same time. So, so what was the most entertaining Outback experience. I want to know, I think the box intent, right? Really, the most awful, and the most, yeah, yeah, sweat in there. Oh, and the blood and stuff. And then you kind of look, you think, Oh, is that blood? Yes, it is blood. Yes, stuff horrifying. But no, it's, it's interesting. But when I was going to the Outback, people would dismiss me as a city girl. You know, what do you know? They're quite right. But after I'd fought in the boxing tent, when I introduced myself to people that they could be a bit dismissive, and then I'd say, Oh yes, well, when I was with Fred Brophy in the boxing tent, immediately, suddenly, there would be kind of real un status. Yes, absolutely.

Alex Brooks  32:41  

So forget Instagram. You just need the real story of being in the boxing tent, because that winds you status and influence. Sure,

Sue Williams  32:47  

and I ended up writing his biography because they always wanted his biography written. The guy who runs the boxing tent always refused, but because he felt that I was a crap boxer, but I obviously had courage, he said, because I'd throw myself into it. So he agreed for me to write his biography. So you never quite know what's going to happen sometimes. And some of those places where he operates his boxing tent at some of the roughest places in Australia, like what

Alex Brooks  33:15  

I want to know? Yeah, well it counts, because they're frightening. Some of these places they are,

Sue Williams  33:22  

they are, and it's mostly in the Northern Territory and the

Alex Brooks  33:24  

northern lawless, lawless where there's no speed limit. Well, that's right,

Sue Williams  33:28  

because it's illegal in New South Wales and Victoria, because it's so dangerous it

Alex Brooks  33:33  

is obviously. I mean, the Northern Territory is where, sorry, microphone, this is where you've written about. I mean,

Sue Williams  33:39  

these pieces were horrific, and Joanne Lee's horrific.

Alex Brooks  33:43  

Can you give us a little bit of a taste of what's in this book? Because I think Australians will be surprised to know what's really gone on. Most of us have heard of this, but sure tell

Sue Williams  33:53  

us. There's been so many conspiracy theories. I mean, falconia and Joanne Lee's two young British people traveling around Australia. They were planning to go back and get married and have a family. This is a big adventure. And then, sadly, they got just past Alice Springs, and they were attacked by a man called Bradley Murdoch, who Wolf Creek is based on. That's right, yeah, absolutely right. And Peter, nobody's ever seen him again. Joanne managed to get get away from him. He kept searching for her, and she kept hiding from him, just in the middle of nowhere, awful, like terrifying for her, but because there was nobody else around, people started thinking maybe she had something to do with his disappearance. She's really suffered in that way.

Alex Brooks  34:34  

Conspiracy theories are like the evil of the internet,

Sue Williams  34:38  

right? And this was even before the internet, really. And there was still conspiracy, and now there are even more. And there have been so many documentaries about it too. But always people bring up the conspiracy theories. You know, maybe Peter is is hiding and living a weird life somewhere, and maybe she is a murderer and that kind of stuff, and she's really suffered from it. So it's an amazing it. Was an amazing thing. And I traveled all around Australia in their footsteps, and then in the footsteps of the killer, Bradley Murdoch, because he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He was a member of a bikey gang. So again, you saw that kind of nasty underbelly of Australia, really.

Alex Brooks  35:15  

But you've done everything, man, no,

Sue Williams  35:17  

I haven't at all. But it was a really interesting book. It was a really interesting

Alex Brooks  35:21  

book to write, and it's really important that you got it on the record right, because Absolutely, the facts are the important things for whoever might write historical fiction about them in the future. Yeah, sure, there's a record to go and talk to. Absolutely, yeah, because I'm sure she is grateful for you standing up for the truth.

Sue Williams  35:43  

Died the other day in prison, and I wrote a column for the Herald and her representative, got in touch with me and said, Thank you so much for the piece, because I was saying how ridiculous the conspiracy theories are, because people were saying, Well, maybe he was an innocent man. He was jammed for life. You know, the court records, absolutely, there's no doubt, yes, no doubt in anybody's mind, apart from the conspiracy theories that he was guilty, and it was overwhelming

Alex Brooks  36:10  

evidence that's that's what I've certainly read. And you know, Australian, the stories of the Australian outback fill our imagination. You know, we had the Azariah Chamberlain Dingo death, you know, Australia's Got this sort of weird fascination with

Sue Williams  36:26  

our outs. Strangely, it really encourages people to go to the Outback,

Sue Williams  36:34  

kind of really interested in, you know, every time a crocodile kills somebody,

Alex Brooks  36:40  

well, they talk about the, is it the I can't remember the paper up in Darwin, but they always do a croc story on the front page, and it sells out. We're kind of bizarrely twisted in Australia. You know, the UK might have its page three tabloid girls with their boobs and bums, but Australia has crocs, Crocs and cane toads. That's the other thing we seem to be quite fascinated by. Absolutely. We're very we're very strange bunch now talking about cane toads and crocs. What can go wrong on holidays now, Sue, you've been everywhere. Come on. You must have had your fair share of travel disasters.

Sue Williams  37:16  

Sure. Well, yes, I was in Iran, Iraq during the war,

Alex Brooks  37:22  

the Gulf War, we're talking in the 90s,

Sue Williams  37:25  

with the Australian Army and the American army.

Sue Williams  37:28  

And I told you, she's been everywhere.

Sue Williams  37:33  

So bizarre, because No, I was one of a group of, I think there were five of us, five journalists, one one was a photographer, one was a cameraman, and I was the only woman, and we were, we were flown over there, and took us ages to get there, because, well, that's right, absolutely. But also our Hercules broke down, and so we had to land in Basra and be rescued by the Americans, and, you know, that kind of stuff. But the first night, we were put into this room, and it was really dark, it was just bunk beds, and we had some army people there guarding us. And in the middle of the night, I woke up and I looked around, and the room was empty. I was the only one in the room, and I thought, What the hell is happening? I went over to the window and looked in the curtain. I was black outside. And I thought, I don't know what what's happening. I don't know where I am. I'm just going to go back to bed because there's nothing I can do. And in the morning, I woke up, and I thought maybe that was a bad dream, because everybody was there. And I said, I had this really weird dream that nobody was here, and they went, didn't you go to the bomb shelter? And I said, What bomb shelter? There'd been a rocket attack that night. I slept through it, and there was a huge hole not far away, and they'd all gone who were meant to be guarding us. So lots of things can go wrong, but there's some things you have no control over, but you just have to kind of keep a cool head, or just try and, you know, stay where you are and hope,

Alex Brooks  39:01  

oh my gosh, that is hilarious. So yeah, you've they forgot to take you to the bomb shelter that has very uncomfortable. Now, hilariously, your partner is also a writer, and he has just written. He writes under the name James Dunbar crime, yeah, but his latest is about a holiday in Kiyama, which is on the New South Wales south coast. That goes wrong. Tell us a little bit about what can go wrong on a holiday in chiama.

Sue Williams  39:30  

That's right. Well, his book follows a young couple who go away on holiday, they come back and they've got a dog called iris, and they get a dog sitter in to look after the dog while they're away, and when they come back, Iris is gone. All the locks on the doors have been changed, their own credit cards have been canceled, everything, their phones are no longer working. And you and you kind of realize, then, without technology, there's nothing we can do. When we don't have a phone, there's nothing so it follows the nightmare. Of them trying to find out what's actually happened, where who this dog sitter really was, and why she wanted to do them so much harm. So it's quite scary. It's a bit anti holiday in some ways, isn't it, really, but

Alex Brooks  40:13  

isn't it interesting that the world's gone full circle? So we like to go away on holidays to read, relax and connect. But now writers are writing about how you can go away, which is what I think is kind of interesting about this. Now. Beck, do you have any tips on how we can plan for travel that's both affordable and meaningful? So you've talked about not over planning, but what other tips and tricks can make holidays,

Bec  40:41  

holiday homes do help with that kind of affordability angle, like you can cook at home or have fewer meals out and that sort of thing. Usually it's a few things that can do in and around the home as well. So that's that's quite a good way.

Alex Brooks  40:58  

And some holiday houses now will have like surfboards or mountain bikes, and so you can sort of do everything exactly,

Bec  41:04  

lots and lots of really good amenities. But another really good tip is just traveling outside of peak times. We call them dead weeks, which sounds really dramatic, but all that means is like the week before or the week after peak seasonality, like May, right after Easter, you can get a really good deal, and there's fewer crowds. So you know, when you're thinking about how everyone's looking to, like, really lean into that relaxing there's not the chaos of all the school holiday kids around you've got the pool to yourself. So things like that are a really great way to save a few dollars.

Alex Brooks  41:36  

And there's the benefits of the Internet are that there's all these weird and wonderful new quirky things online. So, for example, frequent flyer point gurus. Now, these weren't a thing a decade ago, but there are, like, people on the internet who literally make a living out of showing how you can hack all your frequent flyer points to basically travel for nothing, effectively, like, bizarre things happen, right? Like, it's just weird what you can find when you start a Google search around travel

Sue Williams  42:07  

now, and as well, they're kind of lots and lots of travel tips now, and probably issued by your organization about how you should book flights on a Sunday, Tuesday or Wednesday, because it's cheaper those days.

Bec  42:19  

Yeah, and even your accommodation, like there's days with accommodation that when you check in mid week, it's a little bit cheaper than if you go Saturday to Saturday, because that's what everyone does. So yeah, lots of really good little cost saving hacks like that, absolutely.

Sue Williams  42:32  

And also kind of looking@booking.com and stuff like that, but then maybe going to the place itself and booking with them, and negotiating and things sometimes that can go and I've always liked flying places on Christmas days really cheap, get away from the family, and

Bec  42:51  

the airport's a little bit less chaotic as well.

Sue Williams  42:55  

They give you champagne on the plane. Yeah,

Alex Brooks  42:57  

they do, actually, although I remember one time I was traveling when my kids were little, and we were traveling down to see my mum in Tasmania, and we'd opened the Christmas presents, and my kids were going through this horrific Bad Boy phase when they were like, you know, six and eight. And I'd bought them these little trinkets they had, like, black sort of leather jackets and criminal type shades, very Bradley Murdock esque and and I bought them these little necklaces that had a little silver bullet on them. Of course, they wore them onto the to the airport, and they just opened their Christmas present, and they got confiscated because the bullets were too threatening to take on a plane. So it really ruined their Christmas Day vibes.

Sue Williams  43:41  

It is such

Alex Brooks  43:43  

a shame. But these are the joys of travel, right? You remember the strange things afterwards. Now you would have done many long haul flights, even going home to Britain, must have been quite what are your What are your tips for long haul flights to make them remotely pleasant?

Sue Williams  44:01  

Well, it's hard to make a long flight, you know, it's nice if you're in business class, obviously. But, you know, usually one doesn't really want to spend Absolutely because you spend it all on the

Alex Brooks  44:12  

flight when you can spend it on the accommodation when you get there.

Sue Williams  44:16  

Yeah, I tend to do a bit of work on planes because it's, for me, it's fantastic, because you've got no phones happening. Sometimes I take, this is so nav. I take a little tray, you know, one of those little lap tray, yeah, underneath, that's exactly it. I take it everywhere, really. I take it on trains and everything, so I can use my computer on it. And it's often much better, because it's much wider than than the fall down thing, tray thing that sounds very, very nerdy, really, that's

Alex Brooks  44:46  

hilarious, but you're a writer, so you would expect a little bit of nerd that's that's the job. Well, being a writer, yeah, you have to sit at a computer for a long time. And

Sue Williams  44:54  

also, if you've got time, I love being able to have a stopover. That makes such a difference. And also. So I find some flights if it's kind of, if you've got a really long stop over somewhere like 1618, hours, yeah, it's obviously going to be much, much cheaper. And sometimes, if it's a good, long stop over, you can actually use that to your benefit. Last time I went over to the to Europe, I went with Vietnam Airlines. Okay, and their business class is about the same price as many other airlines economy. So I went business class as well for some of it, anyway, not all of it. But then coming back, the big problem is you've got about 16 hour layover in Saigon. Oh, okay, I used that. I went into town, I booked a hotel. I had a shower, and the hotel was $50 a night. Wow, I had a shower, I had a sleep, went out for a meal, had a massage, came back, had another sleep and a shower, then went back to the airport, and that was a much cheaper flight, just because of the inconvenience of that 16 hours. But if you can actually use the 16 hours, I find that really, really worthwhile. So it's worth having a look at some of those flights that look as if they're absolutely awful because they've got such a long time. Yeah, but sometimes it can be

Bec  46:07  

good. Oh, that takes the journey part of the holiday almost.

Sue Williams  46:11  

Yeah, you've had a nice break and you're just ready for the next bit. Yeah.

Alex Brooks  46:15  

And what about the travel money? Like, what do you do when you go away? You know, because there's travel cards. And what's your solution here in the old days, it was travelers checks, if anywhere,

Sue Williams  46:28  

real hassle? Yeah, now I use a wise card, okay, which is fantastic. They really works very well, interesting. And it's much, much cheaper than using your own credit card or using a, you know, a Qantas card. Yeah, I can always use those for a while.

Alex Brooks  46:44  

And what about staying connected on your phone or the internet when you travel? What's your trick for that one?

Sue Williams  46:49  

Well, the last time I did it, it was going to be, it was going to cost me $10 a day to stay connected. But then I looked on the internet and it said, if you're a new customer, we'll give you that for $5 a day. So I canceled my account. I had for a long time, started another account, and then so I got it for $5 a day. And for me, $5 a day is worth it to stay connected, because so interesting. I mean, as you say, it's not really much of a holiday when you're looking at your emails and stuff all the time, but sometimes it can be really oppressive, thinking, oh my god, I wonder if I've got loads of people asking me stuff, maybe it's better just to get rid of that and clear it the next day. Look at it again. Well,

Alex Brooks  47:29  

you would have a lot of deadlines to juggle, because you are quite the prolific writer. So yeah,

Sue Williams  47:33  

the last trip I did, it was awful, because I've just done lots of stories, and I kept getting queries. All that was so annoying. And I thought, I'm never going to do that again. I'm never going to work right up to the time I go, Yeah, because it's

Alex Brooks  47:44  

silly queries, they're the stressful part of writing, so the deadline is one part, but it's the queries afterwards, before they've published, that are actually the most stressful, because no one can publish until the queries are answered, which makes it really stressful. Okay, that's fantastic stuff. We're going to move into what I call the fast questions. I'm going to ask these to Beck first, so I'm going to hit you with two choices, and you're just going to immediately say which one you feel is right. Then I'll come to you a bit later. Pack light and carry on, or pack it all and check in your battery on. Oh, look at you. Yeah. Okay, domestic or international.

Bec  48:21  

I feel like you're making me choose my favorite child. I don't like that one. I'm going to give you two answers. If you've got more than two weeks International, less than two, stay close to home and explore our backyard. Okay, that's a good

Alex Brooks  48:33  

one. Beach or mountains. Beach, serene countryside

Bec  48:38  

or bustling city. I'm a country girl,

Alex Brooks  48:41  

sunrise or sunset, sunrise, hotel or home stay.

Bec  48:46  

I mean, I've talked all about home stays all day, so it would be very inauthentic for me to say hotel, but I think it depends on who you're traveling with. But I think home stays are a really good way to connect, okay, road or rail. I'm too much of a control freak Road,

Alex Brooks  49:02  

cruise or car hire. Car hire, okay, plan every detail, or go with the flow.

Bec  49:09  

Plan enough, but allow for some adventure. Okay, could she have that

Alex Brooks  49:21  

first class or economy.

Bec  49:24  

I mean, you can't say no to first class. Leave someone else's pay. Agreed, totally agreed. I'd rather spend more on my accommodation and stay somewhere really nice when I get there, but if someone's treating me, I'll take the first class. Okay,

Alex Brooks  49:36  

that's That's great. Thank you. BEC, now Sue, I'm going to be really cheaty here, and I'm actually going to ask for some of your travel recommendations. Straight off the top of the bat, what do you think is the best airline? Qatar? Best hotel,

Sue Williams  49:50  

citizen M where's that? They're a hotel group. They're based in Holland, but they have hotels all around the world. They don't have them in Australia. Sadly. Can say, I've never they have but they're kind of like they're mid range hotels, but they have great communal areas. The rooms really small, a massive bed fills up most of the room, but they have cafes, and they have areas where you can sit and lounge and work, and they're in great places. There's one in London, and you look out over the Tower of London. Oh, wow. Okay, so, and it's not too posh or anything. It's just really kind of, yeah, Sophie and nice,

Alex Brooks  50:27  

excellent. What's your top packing tip?

Sue Williams  50:31  

Don't pack everything. Pack light. My partner, he packs everything. Last time I said to him, I'm taking I like traveling with the rucksack. I know it sounds terribly childish, but it's great because you can have it on your back, and you can walk and step on trains and stuff. And last time I traveled with him, he said, Please don't take that. And I said, why not? He said, Oh no, no. It looks so silly. So he made me take a big case, then he filled my case with all his stuff as well as his case. It was just horrendous. The next time I went, not with him, I had my rucksack. It was great. Are they? But a friend on the trip said to me, could you carry my stuff back for me?

Alex Brooks  51:08  

Unfair, unfair. What's the best Australian travel destination? The very best one.

Sue Williams  51:16  

Gosh, that's so hard. I know, I knew you'd say that I really love Winton in the Queensland outback. It's just a perfect little Outback town. It's where all the dinosaurs were. It's got a great dinosaur museum. It's got a fantastic museum for walsing, Matilda, Wilson, Matilda, Cent Center, which is like an ode to Swagman. Oh, that's hilarious. Australia, a few bunyips, maybe loads of pups. It's a really nice place.

Alex Brooks  51:38  

Winton, okay? Winton in Queensland. That's interesting. What about the best restaurant to travel to? Doesn't have to be Australia. Could be international. Best place you've ever eaten.

Sue Williams  51:53  

Okay, it wasn't a restaurant, but it was in Jordan, in the Wadi Rum desert, staying with the Bedouins. Wow. And you stay in one of their tents, and then they, they bring all this food out, and you're just sitting on cushions in a tent, and you just eat all this, all these delicacies, fantastic.

Alex Brooks  52:10  

What did they serve you? What type of food do Bedouins eat? Well, there

Sue Williams  52:13  

was lots of lots of meat, but I don't eat meat. So they had lots of meat, but they also had lots of chickpeas, falafel. And it's kind of a real Middle Eastern spread. Yes, everything. And wow, it was and then they danced. Oh, it was incredible, really, saying okay thing. And I thought that was the best experience. So it's not a restaurant, but anybody can go there, anyone can go to Jordan. It's such a wonderful country, so safe and it's fascinating. Oh,

Alex Brooks  52:42  

wow, that's so interesting. What about So you've already talked about your best rucksack. What is the best type of rucksack to travel with? Do you

Sue Williams  52:50  

know one that's not too big, really, because otherwise you just end up taking so much stuff. So one that you can kind of, you can put all the straps inside and zip it up as well. So then you can chuck it on the Oh. Okay.

Alex Brooks  53:03  

And do you fold or roll your clothes? Roll. Okay. What's the next book you're going to take away with you on a trip? Wow.

Sue Williams  53:16  

I think I'm going to take a Fiona Mackintosh book. She was another writer on on the cruise, and she writes a lot of historical fiction, but international historical fiction. She doesn't really base much here, and she's got one called the perfumers secret, which I Oh, okay, it's based in France. That looks really, really interesting, because there was a great

Alex Brooks  53:37  

novel called perfume, right where, oh, that's a lovely one of the best books that brings the whole sense of smell to life as a historical story. Oh, that's so interesting. Okay, so now we're going to come to our reveals, where each of you are going to reveal your top three readaway destinations. Beck, I'm going to hit you first, because I know Sue's going to angst over this and worry. And the problem is she has too much to choose from. So Beck your top three. Read away destinations. Where would

Bec  54:10  

they be? So I have thought about this as destination and maybe a suggestion for a place to stay. So Byron Bay we talked about before. There's a great property there called Villa sand, and it gives that real health treatment vibe, but you can it's just a home that you can stay with your friends and looks kind of Exactly, exactly. And who doesn't want to spend some time in Byron heating up. It's beautiful there. Wait mo in New Zealand has got the hobbit guest house. So yeah. And if you're into those books and you want a magical experience that is super cool,

Alex Brooks  54:45  

because they're kind of wild in New Zealand as well. It's like, if, and if you ever watch, oh, I can't remember his name, the film director. He's big in Hollywood, warriors, yeah, it's, there's once for Warriors, but it's, um. In taikihi, and he's done all these beautiful boyhood stories. One's called boy. Another one is called attack of the Wilder people.

Bec  55:10  

Yes, my favorite movie,

Alex Brooks  55:15  

and just so makes you want to go to New Zealand, because there's so much

Bec  55:19  

heart there, right? And it's such a great destination, like lots of things to do, but also really relaxing. I think, you know when you're leaning into that relaxation. And my last one is, I know the fourth wing is really popular now. And so castles are something we're seeing. And so Sterling in South Australia has got a home that is cool, is like a castle. And so that, you know, it's what an adventure, without having to go out and have an adventure, and you can relax into it.

Alex Brooks  55:45  

Oh, fantastic. Now, Sue, I know you're going to stress about this

Sue Williams  55:49  

absolutely, because

Alex Brooks  55:50  

they're probably way more than

Sue Williams  55:52  

three, but no, you choose, tell us your top three. Okay, I would love, I love going to Petra in Jordan. Yes, beautiful place, and there are so many legends associated with it, and so many great books around, yeah,

Alex Brooks  56:07  

describe the the landscape there, because it's particularly unique, right? For people who don't know,

Sue Williams  56:13  

yeah, you probably, you probably know from some of the the Harrison Ford movies, that's great. So beautiful, incredible buildings. And they go on and on for ages. And you can get a little donkey, and you can ride a donkey if you want to ride a horse or walk. And you can keep going. It's a huge a vast site, vast historical site, and you get to the point, which is called the end of the world. It's just this amazing end of the whole site. And then you look down and you can see for miles and miles. You can see the horizon. It's just stick, fabulous, quite a magical place. So, Petra, Petra, oh, it's just very, very special, okay? And then my first love was always Africa. I always loved reading about Africa. Loved reading African writers, and I think Kenya is still one of my favorite places. Really. Going up to the north of Kenya, around Lake Turkana is really quite wild, and people are so generous and interesting and fun, and there are so many great books written about, say, the Maasai, in Kenya, so I would go there, and the third place, maybe, maybe Venice, maybe Venice. I went to Venice recently. It's, again, it's very crowded now, isn't it? It is a bit but not out season. It's a lot quieter. And it wasn't, it wasn't as I went in July, and I thought it was going to be massively, yeah, but it wasn't too bad. And I for the first time, I've been there a number of times, but the first time ever, I went on a gondola ride, because I always thought, Oh, it's so touristy. There's a reason it's touristy. It's fantastic. And how much does it cost? Because

Alex Brooks  57:55  

I remember when I was backpacking in Venice, and I just couldn't afford it. It was, it was more than a night's accommodation to go. I think

Sue Williams  58:02  

it was about $100 and it was really a bargain. I'm actually doing a story because I discovered that there are some, a few female gondoliers. Oh, really, I'm doing a story for a magazine on this female gondolier I found and her grandfather was gondolier, and her father. And

Alex Brooks  58:18  

does she live in Venice, or does

Sue Williams  58:20  

she she's a Venetian she grew up, so women are kind of getting into that as well. That's so interesting. I could make a, you know, the heroine of a book in English. This is so lovely. I mean, there's so many beautiful books, so many beautiful films, and it's just fabulous. And once you get away from St Marks and all the really, really touristy places, it's so quiet and calm all that water, it's just yeah, because there's no colour, right?

Alex Brooks  58:49  

Yeah. So the top six are. Yours is Venice, Petra and Kenya, and yours is Adelaide Hills, wato mo in New Zealand. Did I pronounce that correctly? I hope I did. I'm sure the New Zealanders will tell me if I didn't. And Byron Bay, yes. So there we are. We have the top six right away destinations all there. So thank you very much for joining us. Sue and Beck, thanks for being on the midlife shift. Pleasure.