I love travelling because I love to get lost. I hate the idea of planned stuff. I love not knowing much about where I am and having to work it out.
When I was a kid my holiday included travelling around Australia. I grew up in Melbourne until I was eight, so in some ways it feels like the first eight years of my life were a holiday. My parents moved out there during the recession of the 80s and we used to spend our holidays in a wooden cabin on the beach near Adelaide. When I was 14 I was obsessed with the movie The Mummy and managed to bully my parents into taking me to Egypt. We stayed a week in Luxor, in an amazing hotel by the Nile; it had an infinity pool where you could watch the boats passing up and down the river. I didn't like Cairo so much; it was so hot and a bit scary. I was both overwhelmed and underwhelmed by the Pyramids. I knew they are incredible but they are surrounded by consumerism which ruins it.
My best travel experience is Hawaii. I'm obsessed with Lost and Jurassic Park and they were both filmed at Kualoa Ranch in O'ahu. I did the movie tour and it was amazing to relive all the childhood memories. Hawaii is so beautiful and I had so many moments of thinking to myself, 'Oh my God, I can't believe this place exists'. I used to go down to the beach at night and meet so many random people and have great conversations. I made some great friends, including a relative of President Obama. She was amazing; she ran a farm, was in college and was also involved in the UN. I ended up working on her shrimp farm for two days.
My worst travel experience was a family trip home to Australia in 2010. It was the time of the really bad snow and we got stuck in Heathrow for five days. It was like the end of the world. They brought in trucks for water, we slept on the floor with silver foil to keep us warm and we ate terrible food. When we eventually got to Australia we found out that the airline had lost our bags. I remember my sister crying her eyes out. We went off to Target and brought a load of clothes for the holiday. It was annoying as all our Christmas presents were in the bags and we were going to a wedding with people we hadn't seen in 20 years, and we weren't in our finest. We got the bag back two days before we left Australia. Then when I got back to Dublin they lost my bag again on the way back.
My favourite city is Toronto. It used to be my stop off point when I came back from LA. One time a four-hour stopover became a week after I met up with a girl who I knew through Twitter. It turned that she was minted and she ended up booking the penthouse in the Hilton where we partied for five days. After that I went back to Toronto every year for four years. I love the city; it's so clean, the people are lovely and it has loads to do at night and during the day. The food is lovely too. One of my favourite things in the world is poutine (Canadian dish of fries, gravy and cheese curds).
The strangest thing I have experienced while away was going to the Oscars. I was over there reporting for Two Tube last year and it was surreal. It's one of those things that you think you will never get to, so winding up on the red carpet was mental. After the ceremony we ended up in Fionnula Flanagan's house in the Hollywood hills. She made us toasties, gave us beers and we talked with her and her husband until the early hours of the morning.
If I won the Lotto I'd go to space. I'd buy that trip that Bob Geldof is going on. It's the one place you can only do if you won the Lotto and I'm obsessed with space movies. I love the idea of checking out what's out there.
The best hotel I ever stayed in was in LA. It's not necessarily the hotel itself but was more the room I got. I was at a YouTube conference in LA and had nowhere to stay. The guy who was running the event offered me the penthouse in the Hyatt all to myself. There was a Jacuzzi, a kitchen, a sitting room, two bedrooms and balconies looking over the city. I was just 19 and kept thinking, 'I'm so jammy'.
My favourite place in Ireland is Dingle. For me, it's the closest place in Ireland to Hawaii in terms of wonderment. The scenery is stunning and the town is so cute. It's my perfect escape in Ireland. Other Voices is class, too.
My next holiday will be Japan. I really want to go there for the culture shock. Going somewhere completely different makes me feel that the world is huge. I'd love to go to a Japanese city and just sit in a coffee shop, people watching and look at how the place functions on a daily basis.
I always bring back a fridge magnet for my granny.
The craziest thing I have seen on holiday was the fallen tree from Jurassic Park in Kualoa Ranch. It's the scene where Sam Neill and the kids hide from the dinosaurs. Seeing it for real was amazing.
I never go travelling without my camera. I love taking photos.
My favourite travelling companion is myself. A lot of people don't get it but I love being able to do what I want when I want. I like to walk the streets and get lost and not have to abide by an itinerary.
Stephen Byrne is a television and radio presenter with RTÉ 2 and RTÉ 2fm. His career began at the age of 16 making YouTube vlogs for his channel 3sixty5days. Stephen has presented on The Voice, Other Voices and TwoTube, which will be back on our screens on Monday September 7. Stephen is currently filling in for Ryan Tubridy on RTÉ 2fm weekday mornings at 8:45am.
