Go Away With … R.L. Stine

By Jae-Ha Kim
Tribune Media Services
January 1, 2013

Thanks to the popularity of his “Goosebumps” novels, author R.L. Stine is referred to by many fans as the Stephen King of children’s books. Stine, 69, says that when he does book tours, he often meets people who said his books “traumatized” them when they were younger. “One college student recently told me that when I did a talk at his school,” he says, “it ruined my night.” The prolific, New York Times best-selling author recently released his first adult novel, “Red Rain” (Touchstone, $24.99), which centers on a travel writer, her family and a pair of mysterious boys who bond with her. Read more about Stine at his website.

Q. What is your favorite vacation destination?

A. Every Christmas, a huge group of about 30 of us in my family go to St. Croix. I love it. The water is beautiful, we stay at a really nice resort and it’s just a really relaxing trip. I like that it’s 80 degrees there every day. I like just about any place that’s warm where I can take it easy. St. Martin and the Cayman Islands are just beautiful. The Caymans have the most beautiful water I’ve ever seen.

Q. How active are you on your vacations?

A. Other people like to do things. They’re active and play tennis. I like to snorkel and swim, but that’s about it. I love to lie on the beach. I hold down the beach for everyone. I like places where you don’t have to drive into town or do anything. I’m basically lazy.

Q. What would people be surprised to learn about your traveling tendencies?

A. That I like to travel to places you’d expect a 10-year-old kid to like. I love big, crazy resort places like Disney World. This is so bad for my horror image, but I would like to live at Disney World! I love being with thousands of people walking around there. My other favorite place is the Atlantis (in the Bahamas). I try to go at least once a year. It’s so much fun and it’s crazy. Everything’s twice as big as it needs to be. There’s all these swimming pools and restaurants, with beaches everywhere, a huge aquarium, that enormous casino … it’s just amazing.

Q. Do you write a lot when you’re on vacation?

A. No. I’m good at just being comatose. I can’t go that long without writing, though. Someone asked me how long I could go without writing. I told him maybe 10 days to two weeks, and he said writing’s my addiction. He’s kind of right. It’s my living, but it is an addiction, too.

Q. What was the first trip you took as a child?

A. I grew up in the middle of Ohio and there was nowhere to go. There were five of us and we were very poor. I remember these horrible vacations we took when my dad would get two weeks off. We would rent a cabin on Lake Erie and we would all sleep in one room in this little cottage. And it always rained half the time that we were there so we’d be inside playing cards. There were some fun times. My brother and I would go into the lake and play in the water. In those days, the water was so polluted that it was kind of lumpy. But we didn’t know. At the time, we thought it was great.

Q. What kind of trips did you take your son on when he was younger?

A. My son was totally spoiled as a little kid because we went to Disney World all the time. He and I would go two or three times a year. By the time he was 9 or 10, he could tell the guides where everything was. We used to go to Club Med every year when my son was little. The most wonderful one was in Eleuthera (Bahamas). It was so beautiful. We also did Club Med in Cancun and Turks and Caicos.

Q. What’s your favorite mini bar item?

A. I had a terrible Toblerone habit for a while, and they were in every hotel minibar. And then people found out that I liked them so they made sure the hotels I stayed at had Toblerones stocked in the minibar. I had to stop that habit cold.

Q. Do you prefer to go back to the same places or visit new cities?

A. I’m not really a bold, adventurous traveler. I only go places where I’ve already been. So that’s kind of limiting. I had a great book tour in Australia and a five-city book thing in China that was really fun. The kids were just fabulous

Q. What is on your travel bucket list?

A. I’ve never been to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and I’ve been thinking I’d like to go there. I’m very curious about India and think that would be a really interesting country to see.

Q. What is your worst vacation memory?

A. A few years ago, my wife, Jane, and I went to London and were staying with good friends. While we were there, a volcano went off in Iceland and no planes were flying anywhere in Europe. We were just stuck there. We didn’t think to check the volcano schedule. We couldn’t get home at all. Nothing was landing in Heathrow. On the news, they were saying that the last time this happened, it lasted a year. And I’m thinking, “What about our dogs in New York? Do I have to get citizenship here, or what?” It was a very strange feeling. We were only stuck for about four or five days, but it was strange and frustrating having this weird idea that you can’t get back home. We didn’t react well to it either. We should’ve just enjoyed ourselves more, but when a vacation extension is forced on you, it’s not quite the same.

© 2013 JAE-HA KIM
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.