Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
“I’ve traveled to East Africa since I was young,” said “Warriors of Light” musician Radhika Vekaria. “And my grandparents are from India and I’ve traveled through Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Bangalore, Hampi and Goa.”
“We were able to enjoy our two-week honeymoon in Thailand without any complications,” says “Never Have I Ever” actress Richa Moorjani. “I don’t know when we’ll be able to travel again and I’m just so thankful we had the ability to go and witness some of the beauty of Thailand before coming home to a different reality (with the pandemic).”
“I speak Arabic and Hebrew, they’re my main languages,” says Nuseir Yassin. “English was my third language and is my foreign language. I don’t think I pick up new languages too easily. I trained for over 10 years by speaking English repeatedly to myself, just to make sure that I didn’t have an accent.”
“We can speak Hebrew, Polish, Spanish, Hindi, German, Japanese and many more languages,” says M.O.N.T. “We really enjoy learning languages and we learn it through music most of the time, so it’s easy for us to memorize vocabulary.”
As CIA analyst Joe Turner in the new AT&T AUDIENCE Network series, “Condor,” Max Irons plays the role made famous by Robert Redford in “Three Days of the Condor.” The actor says that filming in Toronto reminds him a bit of home. “I used to live in New York and I live in London now and you can see elements of both cities in Toronto,” says Irons, who’s the son of actor Jeremy Irons. “It’s a wonderful place to film, because you’ve got skyscrapers and smaller neighborhoods that have a Brooklyn feel. You’ve also got beautiful nature surrounding you.”
“Alex, Inc.” actress Tiya Sircar says that the most important thing she has learned from her travels is “to be open to new experiences and accepting of other cultures and ways of life. Travel provides us such a wonderful, rich education. Experiencing new things, meeting people from different walks of life, learning foreign customs and trying new foods — it’s hard to be narrow-minded and ethnocentric when you’ve done all that.”
Author John Preston resides in London, England. Having traveled the world, he says that trips become more meaningful when you don’t set unrealistic expectations. “People often have this strange idea that if you go on holiday, you’ll leave all your problems behind,” says the 62-year-old author of “The Dig” (Other Press, $16.95). “You won’t, of course, and you may well find yourself with more time than usual to brood on them. It’s best not to set your sights too high, and simply bask in the unfamiliarity of it all.”
Actor Dominic Monaghan says he enjoyed one of his best meals in Bengaluru, India. “I arrived at a beach and a gentleman asked me if I was hungry. I told him I was. He told me to go swim in the ocean and when I got back, he would have food. I watched him from the sea build a fire and make some bread. By the time I’d returned, he had made me a fantastic spicy chicken tikka and fresh naan bread. It was the best meal I’ve ever had and it cost me about $2.”
“It’s interesting living and working in two different countries — both India and the United States,” says “The Big Bang Theory” star Kunal Nayyar. “Whenever I have time, I go to India and see my mom and dad. We’ll be there for Christmas. And for work, I’m based out of Los Angeles.”
“I’m blessed in my life to have had the good fortune to travel and I never take that for granted,” says actor Cary Elwes. “It’s a wonderful gift to go to new places and meet new people.” Elwes’ breakthrough role came almost 30 years ago when he was selected to play the dashing (and funny) Westley in the movie “The Princess Bride.” Since then, the Los Angeles-based Brit has appeared in numerous films, such as “Glory,” “Liar Liar” and “Saw.”