I've been talking to my well-travelled friend about my holiday habits. He is, like, so not impressed. The past few years, apart from some spiritual tourism in India, I've been holidaying with the family in various villas in Portugal. The memories of these holidays are mostly made up of piri-piri chicken mountains and grilled sardines and doughnuts on the beach writes Roisin Ingle.
We made obstacle courses for the children and went jogging by the sea. There were also daily pilgrimages to the Intermarche, where we marvelled at the variety of cheeses on offer.
Nice, you know, but hardly postcards from the edge.
Reflecting on my penchant for safe, reliable holidays, I begin to worry that myself and my boyfriend will never be the types to come back from holiday with a suitcase full of knick-knacks picked up at some market in southeast Asia. I buy that book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die and I fret because the way I'm going, I'll be lucky if I manage to see even one.
The country is coming down with teenagers who are off "travelling" even if by "travelling" they mean spending six months in County Bondi with a stop in Phuket on the way home. Half of me really wants to spin a globe and just jet off to wherever my finger stops - like that bloke in The Last King of Scotland. The other half really wants a nice lie-down on a sun-lounger with a lurid-coloured cocktail in my hand. This half is more determined it appears. In the past, we've not so much planned holidays as found out what other people were doing and trailed along after them, thus avoiding any holiday decision-making. In the mood for adventure, and scared that yet again other people will have more to say than us when they come back from their holliers, we decide we should try something different this year.
We study the travel supplements. Russia or Bali, we muse, South America or South Africa. China, maybe, or Hong Kong. But suddenly everywhere seems very far away and then there's all that talk about carbon wotsits, so we think, flip that for a game of soldiers, let's just hire a camper van to travel around Ireland for the two weeks. We'll discover our own country and leave the rest of the world to everyone else.
My well-travelled friend is appalled. He says this shows a paucity of imagination. He says he was standing in a paint shop the other day trying to decide what shade to buy. The painter was due at his house in an hour and with no time to apply himself to the task, he opted for magnolia. He pauses at this point to let the significance of his anecdote to sink in. The bland-coloured penny does not drop. "Deciding to holiday in Ireland is like choosing magnolia-coloured paint," he says patiently. "You only choose it because you can't think of anything else."
I try to convince him that Ireland is where it's at these days. I tell him about a recent magical weekend camping by the sea in the Ring of Kerry and living it up at a luxury spa in Kenmare. I remind him about the cool Fáilte Ireland advertising campaign. I tell him that broadcaster David Dimbleby, who when asked which was the most romantic place he'd ever been, replied Co Cork, citing the "soft hills, bays and rivers", the "low scudding clouds".
I ask my well-travelled friend to give me three good reasons why I shouldn't holiday in Ireland. No problem, he says, I'll give you six.
1. It will be raining. All your clothes will be damp in the camper van, which, by the way, is just a bedsit on wheels. The windows will steam up and you'll be miserable.
2. The Ring of Kerry and west Cork are the best bits and you've already seen them.
3. There are places in the world like the Iguazu Falls and the Galapagos Islands and the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canyon. Ireland has the Blarney Stone.
4. You'll spend more money than if you went away.
5 Pac-a-Macs.
6 Super Macs.
I scurry back to the travel supplements, convinced that I can be the type of person who brandishes holiday snaps of 1950s cars in Havana and the tank Castro used at the Bay of Pigs. I read reports about the Inca trail and an eco-holiday on the lakes of Ontario. I check the cost for a wellness holiday in the Balinese jungle, a snip at just under €3,000. I read how Vietnam and Cambodia are so hot right now. I discover Estonia is the new Prague and Cape Verde is the new Caribbean.
And even while I am doing all of this I know there's a good chance I'll end up going around Ireland in a bedsit on wheels with a pac-a-mac tied around my waist. And that I might even enjoy it.