(Bloomberg) -- At Bloomberg Pursuits, we love to travel. And we always want to make sure we’re doing it right. So we’re talking to road warriors to learn about their high-end hacks, tips and off-the-wall experiences. These are the Distinguished Travel Hackers.
Kiki McDonough is a fifth generation British jewelry designer whose colorful gemstone earrings, rings, bracelets and necklaces are a long-time favorite of the British royal family. Catherine, Princess of Wales, wears Kiki McDonough earrings, as did the late Princess Diana.
The first piece of jewelry that McDonough designed, dating back nearly 40 years, was a pair of earrings—a crystal cut in the shape of a heart with a gold and diamond bow on top. It’s on display in the modern jewelry collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
She recalls starting out in the 1980s, after a friend asked her to design the first collection of modern jewelry for his antique jewelry store. “I arrived on my first day with a blank piece of paper and a pencil and felt extremely foolish,” says McDonough. “But there was a little broach in the cupboard cabinet, which was round crystal with a bow in the middle, and it had pearls dotted around the outside; I thought, I’ll cut the crystal into a heart—and put a bow on top and do away with the pearls, and make them in small, medium, large.”
A manufacturer from Birmingham came to take a look and laughed, McDonough says, stating that they would probably never sell. She agreed with him. They were both wrong, and he ended up manufacturing McDonough’s jewelry designs for the next 20 years.When she’s not at home in Battersea, London, just over the Albert Bridge, or at her store in Chelsea, McDonough travels around the world to source her gemstones and find manufacturers. This year she’s traveled to the US, Nepal and India.
But in the first week of September, she’s heading to Barbados for a full-on beach vacation with her girlfriends.
All airports are ghastly, she says, but this jewelry designer at least can find in-flight comfort by curling up in her seat, wearing comfortable pants, a fleece and socks, and reading “a really good” book, a diversion she doesn’t have much time for at home.
She’s loyal to British Airways for the points and since the pandemic travels with only a carry-on, in which she packs a hot water bottle, essential for tolerating the air-conditioning in her hotel room.
Here are a few others of McDonough’s travel hacks.
Choose to vacation in a different time zone, so you’re out of reach.On Monday, I’m going to the beach. I’ve got five books. I’m going with some girlfriends. And I just love swimming in the sea. That’s how I relax— swimming in the sea, reading my book, catching up on some sleep. And I always try, if I’m going for a rest, to go somewhere where there’s a time difference so no one can get hold of me.
The best accessory is the one you’ve held onto for years.When I was 6 I found a beautiful, very individual-looking pebble on Southwold beach, Suffolk, where we used to go for our holidays. It is a pretty pale shade of pink, and it has streaks of a darker shade of scarlet running across it. At the time it reminded me so vividly of those deliciously sickly raspberry ripple ice creams. I started to carry it with me all the time. It has traveled all around the world with me, and I really do think it brings me good luck. Little did I know at age 6, I would go on to become an expert in gemstones!
Everyone else’s favorites don’t have to be yours.I stayed at Hotel Santa Isabel in Cuba, which felt like stepping back in time to the ’50s. I had heard that most people opt for Hotel Nacional de Cuba or the Excélsior, but my son suggested we venture somewhere different in the heart of the old town, near the square, and I am so pleased we did. Santa Isabel occupies almost the whole of one side of the Plaza de Armas, the oldest square in Old Havana, and it’s colonial in style. Inside it’s filled with color, which of course I adore. There’s pink everywhere! The check floor tiles in our room were pink, and the dining room has bright pink walls. It was originally built for the Counts of Santovenia. The bathroom fittings were especially interesting!
Exploring your backyard is still underrated. I’d love to go to Vienna, and I haven’t been to Prague, but the other day I was thinking about this: I have lived in the UK all my life, and half the places in the UK I don’t know. So actually, on my bucket list are a few places in the UK that I’d like to visit before I go anywhere else: Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland; a little bit more of Scotland. I’d like to go to Ireland and see some of the sites there. This country is so full of amazing sites.
Start with this when arriving in a new destination. First of all, [I find out] where the spa is. Secondly, where I can eat, and thirdly, how far the beach is located.
Solo travel can be rewarding at any stage of your life.When I first got divorced, I thought, oh my goodness, I might easily be traveling on my own for the rest of my life, and I might not meet somebody else, so let’s see how that works. So I took myself off on a tiger safari to India. I met wildlife photographers Jonathan and Angie Scott. They have won endless awards. They taught me so much about what it really is like to live and work, out in the wilderness—they live in the Maasai Mara, and they know everything there is to know about the wildlife and the culture there. Fifteen years later, we are still in regular contact, and I avidly follow what they are up to, supporting their conservation initiatives as often as I can.
I had the most amazing time. I came back feeling completely different and sort of confident about what I could do.
Ranthambore National Park in India is an underrated, off-radar destination. I loved going on the tiger safari in Ranthambore National Park in India. We flew to Delhi, and I think it was about two to three hours from Delhi. You get up horrendously early in the morning [on the game drive at Oberoi Vanyavilas Wildlife Resort]. They’re very difficult to spot. But the first day, we saw [a tiger] crossing behind some trees, which is an extraordinary sight. And then we found another one that was fast asleep; we were literally 10 feet from it. It was huge; they are the most majestic animals.
Also, the Taj Mahal more than lives up to the hype. Quite a few people had said the Taj Mahal was a bit disappointing. I went, and I was blown away. I think it’s the most amazing building, and in such a beautiful position on the river, which you can see all the way to the left and all the way to the right. And there’s a particular place that you can stand to watch the sun rise, and it’s absolutely sensational. You have to stand between pillars 2 and 3, which doesn’t make any sense [until you get there].Lean into serendipity. When I was 20, my parents decided that I was leading far too exciting a life in London, and it was time for me to go away and learn a little bit more about the world, because they didn’t travel very much. They gave me a return ticket to Cape Town, South Africa. They gave me, I think, like £5. And they said, as soon as you get there, you’ve got to find somewhere to rent, and you’ve got to earn your money. I spent six months there. I hitchhiked to work every morning from outside Cape Town, and I went to stay with people in Durban I’d only met once at a cricket match. I went around South Africa and Botswana, on my own with just the money it took me to get to the next place. There were no mobile phones, and I didn’t ring for three months, because it didn't even occur to me that my parents might be worried. When you're that age, you're completely fearless.
But after that, all sorts of things went wrong—and I’m still here. When you’re traveling, I think the thing I’ve learned most is that it’ll all be all right in the end.
And when things don’t work out, shrug it off—in French.I had a French mother, and she used to say “tant pis!” Never mind. When I’m at work, and somebody says oh, this has happened, I go, “tant pis!”
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