Dave Myers – Rockin’ Rockies
Last year, rock band Thunder invited me and my wife, Lil, on a two-week charity motorcycle ride. They’ve done this for the past six years: it is open to anyone – you just have to cover your costs and guarantee to raise £1,000 for Childline Rocks. There were about 40 of us – on bikes provided by Harley Davidson. There were people from all walks of life: some retired, two ex-SAS members, a young couple (she was pregnant), and an Irish orthopaedic surgeon who kept getting lost.
We landed in Vancouver and rode across British Columbia, through the Rocky Mountains to Calgary – a fair old trek, but it was wonderful. You cover around 100 miles a day, over six or seven hours. If you didn’t want to ride a bike, there were a couple of open-top Mustangs, too. You get to wear bandanas and leather waistcoats. It’s quite rock’n’roll really. Johnnie Allen, Iron Maiden’s tour manager, drove a van with all our luggage in. We stayed in humble places, and hit a local bar each night for a sing-song. Going through the redwood forests was the most spectacular motorcycling. This year, Si [King, the other half of the Hairy Bikers] is coming too.
Dave Myers is a TV presenter and one half of the Hairy Bikers. For more info on the Childline Rocks trip, see sonsofroyalty.com
Edith Bowman – Alone in New York
In 2002, I had just come out of a long-term relationship and, on a whim, booked myself a 10-day trip to New York, solo. I needed to get used to being on my own again: I needed to inspire myself and push myself back out into the world.
Through work and friendships, I knew quite a few people out there, but I was excited by the prospect of traversing the streets of NYC on my own terms.
I stayed at a fantastic hotel called 60 Thompson, right in the heart of Soho, that had a wonderful rooftop bar, and over the next 10 days I learned more about myself than I probably had done in the previous 25 years.
I went to art galleries, I took the train up to Jones Beach to watch a gig, I ate dinner on my own. I also met up with old friends, friends of friends, and made new friends. If I’d had a pedometer, I’d bet I hit more than 30,000 steps a day.
Nothing really out of the ordinary, you might think, but I still look back on this trip as being a really important time in my life, a healing experience that reminded me of who I am but also of who I want to be.
DJ Edith Bowman’s Soundtracking podcast is available every Friday from edithbowman.com and audioboom
Will Millard – Fishing with grandad
I grew up in the Fens, out in the flattened far east of England, where school holidays felt as endless as our horizons. My most memorable summer was undoubtedly the one in which I caught my second-ever fish. I can’t tell you what my first-ever fish looked like as I was so excited at the prospect of holding a real live fish that when my float eventually slid under I struck so hard that I projected my catch out of the river, over my head, and deep into a field of sugar beet. In the photo of that second fish (above), I am sitting next to my grandad with a look of utter disbelief on my face. In that moment I had been handed the keys to a lifetime of pleasure and study, and in my grandad, for at least the next decade, I had a more than willing teacher.
Will Millard is a TV presenter and author of The Old Man and the Sand Eel (Viking £14.99). To buy a copy for £12.74 inc UK p&p, go to guardianbookshop.com
Cerys Matthews – Back to nature in the Outer Hebrides
Sleeping in a telephone box is a not an easily forgotten summer night’s stay. I’d landed on a Sunday in the Outer Hebrides and hadn’t planned ahead. With monsoon-like rain greeting us as we got off the ferry, it was my only resort. I wouldn’t want to repeat it, but it did kick off what turned out to be the most memorable summer holiday ever. Nothing fancy, no flouncy bars, spas, infinity pools or god‑awful chill-out music ... just nature.
And what a beaut she turned out to be – turquoise seas, white sands, fields of buttercups, daisies, dry stone walls and shaggy-haired cattle. A fire, a tent, a book and a whisky, and that first night’s hell sleep was ancient history.
The Good Life Experience festival, founded last year by Cerys Matthews, is on 14-16 September in Hawarden, Flintshire, thegoodlifeexperience.co.uk, camping tickets from £119
Annalisa Barbieri – Down on the farm in Parma
Summer 1976, me and my dad go to his home town of Parma, northern Italy for a month’s holiday. I am 10, and wake every morning to wood pigeons cooing and a breakfast of caffè latte and bread. We listen to Italian singles on the orange record player. I learn all the words. I still remember them. We eat simply, we dress simply – me in shorts and a turquoise towelling top with tie front.
My uncle comes to collect us in a sand-coloured Opel estate and we go up to his farm. We work all day on the land: planting vines, collecting corn, harvesting hay. Me, my dad, his brother and my 88-year-old grandfather. Three generations of Barbieris, together for the last time. I ride on the tractor with my uncle.
Occasionally I climb the big hill to the farmhouse to get refreshments, which I bring down to the men. In a basket: wine, peaches, water. One day I stop to have a pee. When I get back down to my dad, he gently explains that if you have to wee in the wild, it’s best not choose the brow of a hill.
Annalisa Barbieri is a Guardian columnist
Michael Rosen – East Germany with my communist family
My parents were communists. In 1957 they told my brother (15) and me (11) that we were going to Weimar in East Germany for three weeks. They were on a “teachers’ delegation”, and spent the mornings in “sessions”. In the afternoons we went on trips to see Goethe’s house, Schiller’s house, Frederick the Great’s house or further afield to J S Bach’s house. My brother and I got bored, so our parents said we could go to the country, where two nice families would look after us. It would be fun.
We went to a place in the Thuringian Forest on a tram-train, and a beautiful girl showed me a cupboard where I would sleep and put a bag of feathers over me and shut the door. We went for walks in the woods and the girls from the two families linked arms with my brother and walked down a path ahead of me. I wondered if we would be living in the forest from then on but we came back to Weimar on the tram-train.
My father told us that he had said to our mum, “What are we doing putting them on a tram-train? We don’t know where they’re going.” But Mum had said that we would be all right.
Later, we all went to Berlin and on Unter den Linden boulevard a woman said that Hitler liked linden trees and my mother (Jewish) said, “I don’t bloody care if bloody Hitler liked bloody linden trees.”
Mum told us she understood what the German people were saying because she spoke Yiddish for the first five years of her life. We didn’t know that.
We saw Stalinallee (now Karl-Marx-Allee) which non-communists said looked like a public toilet. That caused an enormous row. When we got home, my parents took us into the front room and said, “We’re leaving the Communist party.”
Michael Rosen’s memoir So They Call You Pisher! is out now (Verso, £16.99, to buy a copy for £14.44 go to guardianbookshop.com. In paperback in October)
Mahalia – My Jamaican grandma
I took to Jamaica when I went with my mum when I was 16, just me and her. I hadn’t been since I was a little girl (pictured) and my mum wanted to take me to meet my family for the first time all grown up. I remember how calm I felt in Jamaica. I’d never felt like that on a holiday before. When we arrived, I didn’t know how to take it – it all felt so new. But, after five or six days, I didn’t want to leave.
We hadn’t told my grandma that we were coming. We just drove to Kingston to go and find her. I remember turning up to her gate and ringing the buzzer. It took her about two minutes to walk up to the gate. I said hello. She stared for two minutes and then she realised and burst into tears. The look on her face was unforgettable. We hadn’t been that close together in 10 years and it was super emotional.
That moment of reuniting with somebody you never knew you needed in your life so much will always be the most special. I’ve just got back from my last trip to see her. I can’t wait to go again. Jamaica is one of my favourite places to be. I love the people, I love the food and I love the Earth.
Mahalia is touring the UK in October: see mahaliamusic.co.uk for dates
Lee Ridley – Ibiza on repeat
My first trip to Ibiza was in 2006. It was memorable for many reasons – most of them good. For a start, it was my first holiday without my parents. That felt like a milestone: independence at last! It was also the first time I’d been away with a girlfriend. It was a love affair that would last forever ... Ibiza will always be in my heart.
Yes, it has the sea, the sunsets, the trance music, but it has so much more. Ibiza Old Town is stunning, and the rest of the island is beautiful too, and sometimes gets overlooked because of its reputation for hedonism.
The hotel we stayed in did only have one CD to play around the pool, though: you try listening to Basement Jaxx on repeat for a whole week. You can’t have everything.
Lee, AKA Lost Voice Guy , is performing at the Edinburgh Fringe (Gilded Balloon, 1-26 August), then touring the UK in 2018/19
Ayesha Hazarika – Big Apple wedding guidance
About four years ago, I went to New York for a week for the wedding of one of my best friend. But when I arrived, she her husband-to-be were at each other’s throats. I don’t like holidays where you just lie down and don’t do anything, but New York is great because it’s so bustling. I ended up feeling like I had a mission – to get my friend to commit to the marriage.
We went to Bloomingdales and lots of other big stores. Then she had a breakdown in one makeup department, and I was like, “We can get through this. Calm down. Look at this lovely eyeshadow palette: it really suits your complexion.”
It had all been quite fairytale – they adored each other. I think it was just the pressure of the big day, and in the end it was an absolute success. It was on the outskirts of the city at his parents’ house, in their lovely back garden, just after sundown. I really enjoyed it because lots of lovely older Jewish mothers and fathers kept asking: “Are you single? I have a son.”
It was all quite Sex and the City – lots of shopping, lots of cocktails and lots of drama.
Ayesha Hazarika is a comedian and political commentator. Her new show Girl On Girl – The Fight for Feminism is at the Edinburgh Fringe (Gilded Balloon, 6-11 August), then touring the UK
Rob da Bank – Baby came too
Two years ago, the latest addition to our family, Eli, was born four days before Camp Bestival and Josie wasn’t going to let that get in the way of coming down here with our other boys – Arlo, Merlin and Miller. It’s our annual holiday and family time as well – all the grandparents are here. It’s a huge extended camp of family and friends.
We were in a maternity unit on the Isle of Wight. It was all going smoothly, then suddenly Josie was going into surgery, and I was having a gown and surgical gloves put on.
Four days after her C-section, Josie was pushing a buggy round the site. Kind of insane but we aren’t very good at sitting still. We saw Fatboy Slim, Jess Glynne, Mr Tumble ... I remember listening to Tears for Fears playing Everybody Wants to Rule the World, with arms around all my mates. I was a bit sleep deprived, but it was an amazing weekend, made all the more magical by this new little chap. You hear about kids being born at festivals. I think it’s a nice way to start your life.
Rob is co-founder of Camp Bestival and Bestival, which is at Lulworth Castle this weekend – with a brighter forecast than last week’s washout. Check campbestival.net for 2019 dates
Jonny Woo – Pot luck on Dutch canals
It was my first holiday away from my family. We had been on several canal boat holidays as a family before – I remember playing the recorder with my dad on the roof of the boat. But at the age of 16, I went on a different canal boat holiday, with kids’ summer camp company PGL, around the canals of the Netherlands.
We arrived in Amsterdam and were told not to explore “that” area of the city. Obviously, we then found ourselves deep in the red-light district and in a “coffee shop”. Cue a full-on marijuana trip complete with paranoia that we would never get back to the boat.
We did, eventually, and I spent the next 10 days smoking with a couple of teenagers from Manchester, listening to the Doors. I remember this much more vividly than the tulips or pottery factories. I don’t think that was PGL’s intention.