Julia Dimon is a travel journalist and TV travel personality who has traveled around the world four times across six continents, to over 80 countries.
She is the co-host of Word Travels, a 40-episode TV series about the real lives of travel writers, broadcast worldwide on National Geographic Adventure, Travel Channel UK, Halogen in the US, City-TV and OLN in Canada, and she also hosts the popular online 18-part travel series, Destination Getaway, for MSNBC.
Her work and travel experience are even more far-reaching, and she has taken the time to answer our questions to give our readers a little travel insight on her many views of the world.
Cheapflights: What’s the best destination you have ever been to and why?
Julia Dimon: Tanzania is my favorite country because it has the Serengeti (best safari viewing experience by far), Mt. Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar (beautiful island), it feels safe and has great tourism infrastructure. I did a mini documentary on the hip-hop scene in Tanzania and met amazing people who opened up and made me feel at home.
CF: Do you have any routine procedures when you travel?
JD: I always bring a tiny silver charm of a platypus with me. I like to call it my “good luck platypus” and it’s been with me everywhere. I’m not typically a superstitious person but, since it’s been everywhere with me, I feel like it’s good luck.
CF: What is your travel pet peeve?
JD: I think women who apply or remove nail polish on in the plane are very inconsiderate.
CF: What is your favorite kind of trip?
JD: I love adventurous trips with a ecological and cultural components, and to be able to connect and learn from the local cultures. I’m a people person and enjoy urban centers like Bangkok, New York and Tokyo. I went to gladiator school in Italy, where I learned how to fight like a real Roman gladiator, I spent a night in a “reality show behind bars” in a former Latvian prison and I made lip-plates with the women of the Mursi tribe. I’m down for anything quirky or cool.
CF: At one point in your life, you will have to sit in the middle seat when you fly. If you have two people next to you, who you most want to share a long haul with and whom would you least?
JD: I would love to sit next to the Dalai Lama on a long haul flight. I feel like he’d teach me the secrets of life or, at the very least, he’d pass out and I’ll eat his bag of complimentary pretzels. I would not want to share a seat with Sarah Palin. I find her political rhetoric frustrating, albeit entertaining.
CF: When you fly, is there a tip you can share to make the experience a great one?
JD: Check out some of my travel tips.
CF: What would you consider a travel nightmare trip?
JD: I don’t think a nightmare trip is destination specific – it often has to do with the people you’re with. If you’re stuck with a group of grumpy people who aren’t open to possibilities, then that can create a nightmare experience.
CF: Where in the world offers the best value for money?
JD: Thailand, India and Bolivia. I encourage people to check out good value destinations in South America and South East Asia, rather than going anywhere too expensive in Europe.
CF: In your wide range of travel experience, what has traveling for a living done for you personally?
JD: I’ve had some of my most meaningful experiences in some of the most unlikely of places. In Rwanda, for example, I learned about the 1994 genocide and how it impacts neighboring countries today, and in Chernobyl, I learned about the fall out of a nuclear disaster. Traveling to off-the-beaten track destinations and getting hands-on-history lessons have helped me become more politically and socially aware about the world and where I fit within it.
Cheapflights is proud to have guest voices express their opinions. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Cheapflights Media (USA) Inc.
