Speedy Boarding with Samantha Childress
The author of Caravanserai on Japan, not having a bucket list, and the necessity of noise-cancelling headphones
Welcome back to Speedy Boarding, a bi-weekly series on Not That You Asked that is great news for those of you who are getting sick of me. That’s because it’s a series where I ask some of my favourite writers on Substack eight quick-ish questions about travel. So, the vast majority of the words you’re about to read weren’t written by me but by someone else.
This week the questions are being answered by
of . Sam is an American expat who writes heartfelt travel stories for fellow thinkers, daydreamers, and adventurers. She hopes to stoke your wanderlust, feed your soul, and leave you feeling a kinship with new-to-you cultures. She has been to 30 countries and recently moved to Amman, Jordan after living in Cairo for two years.Sam is one of my favourite writers on Substack and is certainly one of the best travel writers working here. I highly recommend you check her out.
Right, let’s get to the questions.
Where is the best place you’ve ever been and why?
Japan. About six years ago, my husband, Nick and I got a 14-day rail pass for unlimited rides around Honshu island (I think they did away with that offer post-covid, sadly). We went to Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, Miyajima Island, and several small towns in between. I had never been to East Asia before—it all felt so new and different, and that was very energizing.
Japan had it all: it was clean and easy to navigate, there were gorgeous natural landscapes, the people were nice, and the food was both highly varied and of incredible quality (like, the fried chicken at Japanese gas stations is as good as anything I’ve had in the States, and we do fried chicken pretty well). I also found the art and architecture very aesthetically pleasing. But beyond all that, there is something about Japanese culture that I think is really charming. The Japanese appreciate beauty and detail, and they take pride in doing things—even the smallest, most seemingly inconsequential things—artfully. As a creative person, that really spoke to me.
Where is the place you most want to visit?
It’s so hard to choose just one! If you were to ask me tomorrow, my answer would probably be different. But today, I’m going with Namibia. The terrain looks like a radical departure from anywhere I’ve ever been, almost like another planet. I love the idea of going on a safari there, taking lots and lots of landscape photos during the day and stargazing at night.
Who’s your dream travel companion?
Anthony Bourdain. I love how he approached travel with the goal of not just seeing, but feeling and understanding. He embraced the messiness and the grey areas and never sanitized anything. John Steinbeck once said, “people don’t take trips, trips take people,” and Anthony Bourdain embodied that. The world needs more travellers like him.
Great news! I’m going to buy you a hat. The catch is that you have to wear this hat on every future travel trip at all times. What kind of hat would you like?
I spent a long time trying to think up some clever way that I could wear the same hat in every travel situation without ever being over- or under-dressed, and finally concluded that I couldn’t—whether it’s a bucket hat in a fancy restaurant or a fascinator while taking a dip, I will eventually end up looking stupid in a conspicuously inappropriate topper. You fiend, Tom!
So I have to go with a baseball cap that bears the logo of my college campus bar, The Tombs, because I figure I might run into someone who recognizes it. That way, I could at least make an unexpected friend!
Where is the place you never want to go back to?
Oh, this is a hard one. There aren’t many places I’d never, ever go back to, but if I had to make a choice, I’d probably say Chichicastenango in Guatemala. It’s not that I had a bad experience there, or even that I wouldn’t recommend going—it’s a village with a really cool indigenous market where you can find great local goods, and I enjoyed visiting—but it’s several hours’ drive away from anywhere, there’s not much else to do in town, and a lot of the same goods can be had in Antigua, albeit for a slightly higher price (but for what you pay in transportation and time spent getting to Chichi, I’d say it evens out). If I were to go to Guatemala again, I’d skip it.
You’ve been given a million pounds to live your best life in one destination for a year. The problem is - you’re trapped there and can’t leave. Where would you go?
This is SUCH a great question. There are so many places where I would spend a year in a heartbeat, so I’ll narrow this down based on a couple of requirements. It must be equally great in all four seasons, of course. I’d also like it to be somewhere friends and family would want to visit and that wouldn’t be terribly difficult for them to get to, because I won’t be able to leave to visit anyone! Finally, there needs to be a variety of things to do, like hiking, a town or city within striking distance, restaurants and breweries, etc., so I don’t get bored.
My thoughts are wandering towards a big country house, maybe in the Alps near a mountain lake. It would have to be the sort of place with lots of comfortable bedrooms for people to come and stay awhile; a big fireplace where I could curl up and knit while watching the snow fall in winter; a kitchen with copper pots and pans and a nice gas stove for making coffee; and a sunny spot to read and write. Outside would be a little garden where my husband, Nick, could grow herbs for making amaro and where our dog could play. I could be very happy somewhere like that for a year (or maybe more!).
How do you decide where to visit next?
I’m not the sort of person who works down a clearly defined “bucket list.” I want to go pretty much everywhere, so it’s a combination of what I want to see most and what’s convenient at the moment. Also, because I’m married, I don’t get to be the sole decider (boo!), but luckily Nick and I have pretty similar desires when it comes to travel (yay!).
When we lived in Egypt, we would mostly look at where we could get direct flights—or at least reasonably short one-stop itineraries—and narrow down our choices from there. For example, we probably never would have gone to Cyprus had there not been a direct flight from Cairo to Larnaca.
Cyprus wasn’t really on our radar when we were living in the States, but when we realized it was less than 2 hours away from us, we thought why not? I think we’ll take a similar approach now we’re in Jordan. Istanbul is high on my list and we’ll be close, so perhaps we’ll start there…after we’ve seen what there is to see in Jordan, of course.
And finally, what’s the one thing you never leave home without when travelling?
Noise-cancelling headphones. I use them whenever I fly in conjunction with meditations or ambient music on my Insight Timer app. It makes it so much easier to read or sleep on planes. Plus, I can always plug them into the entertainment system and the sound is so much better than what you’d get with earbuds, which never seem to get loud enough to drown out the jet engines. Highly recommend!
A huge thanks to
for agreeing to be part of Speedy Boarding. If you liked this post please do consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to Not That You Asked. Paid subscribers get two free travel guides a month for just £4.99, which is way cheaper than Netflix. There’s also 25% off for the entire month of February which you can get by pressing the button below.The next Speedy Boarding will drop on the 7th of March, next up is
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Thank you so much for having me, Tom!!
A) the Alps are amazing, though I'm not sure I could handle a full winter there. And I really really need to get a pair of noise cancelling headphones. Lovely interview with a great travel writer.