The Titanic Awards

Name Grant Thatcher
Who? Publisher of the irreverent and compact LUXE City Guides (with a cult-like  following). Grant has also written for Vanity Fair, Departures Magazine, and many more.  He can be found casting a vote on the judging panel for UK’s Restaurant Magazine World’s 50 Best Restaurant awards.  More at www.luxecityguides.com

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Toilet You have never seen a toilet until you have beheld a toilet in an Indian train. The image charred into my retina will forever be the benchmark against which I judge all conveniences.
2. Worst Sunburn After an unplanned 9-hour canoe trip to Malapacao off the coast of Palawan, my entire face, scalp and the top of my hands came off repeatedly over the following 10 days. Not surprisingly I didn’t win Miss Philippines that year.
3. Worst Travel Plans The aforesaid trip that ended in Malapacao was in fact supposed to be a week’s R&R in Boracay. Only on the internal flight from Manila did we notice our booker was clearly an imbecile and we were now inadvertently headed for The Last Frontier…
4. Worst City for Driving Having lived in China and Thailand and driven extensively throughout Asia, Europe, America and Oz, I can honestly say that no-one drives as badly as the Italians apart from the taxi drivers in Istanbul, who are quite simply Satan in a cab.
5. Worst Hostel In desperation to find anywhere to stay, I overnighted in what turned out to be a brothel in Bali back in 1987. When checking in the girl informed me helpfully that her sister had a very nasty attack of genital herpes, but that she herself only suffered from cold sores. I ended up sleeping on the floor of my room as the egregiously stained mattress was little more than a viral minestrone.

Famous Travelers