Celebrity Travel: Go Away With Neil deGrasse Tyson

A. My Ph.D. research was at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. There were times when we were at the top in the clouds. It felt like you were sitting on an island in heaven with a little bit of moonlight reflecting the clouds. Talk about stunning! The phrase "other-worldly" has a new meaning there.

Q. Where are you recognized the most, other than the United States?

A. When we were filming "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" in London, I'd be stopped hundreds of times a day. But almost every person was a tourist from Germany, Scandinavia, Spain or South America. Brits had no idea who I was, because there is someone much more famous than I am there. Brian Cox is a physicist with this long Beatles haircut. Talk about a rock star physicist. He literally used to play in bands. He's sort of the voice of scientific reason in the United Kingdom. They all know him there. Only the tourists knew me. I once gave a talk at an American Embassy in Jamaica. We went to get some meat patties afterward and I saw a person walking in the street toward me. He recognized me as the "Cosmos" guy. But if Brian was there, he probably would've headed for him. (Laughs)

Q. What is on your travel bucket list?

A. I've yet to go to the Middle East. It'd be nice if it was a little more stable now. I want to visit the Holy Land. I want to see what has attracted people's religious fervor. I really enjoy learning about how people think. I've yet to get to Antarctica. India is high on my list. I want to visit the South Pacific. I like their seaworthiness and how they developed a way to go from island to island. Very high on my list is to get to the moon and Mars. I don't want to just do a suborbital thing where you go up and come down.

Q. Aren't you frightened of the possibility that you might get stuck up there?

A. We all do a personal calculation when there are risks. If you do something that risks your health, the turnaround has to be an activity that would make an extraordinary life experience and, for me, that would be one of them. Anyhow, I would go after Richard Branson sent his daughter or another beloved family member. After she came back, I'd go because then you figure it'd be pretty safe. (Laughs)

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

A. I traveled early and was a little spoiled by it all. I felt privileged as a child. At age 14, I received a scholarship from the Explorers Club to go on a ship off the coast of South Africa to observe a total solar eclipse. We were on a luxury liner refitted to be a scientific floating observatory. It was wonderful. I attended lectures and shot photos with my camera. I met Neil Armstrong. This was a few years after he walked on the moon. I met Isaac Asimov. Going on a mobile platform, if you learned it was going to be cloudy, the ship can move to a better position to see the moon. A year later, I went on an expedition to Stonehenge and other stone monuments. They brought archaeologists and astronomers and we studied alignments that had already been established. It was pretty amazing.

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(Jae-Ha Kim is a New York Times bestselling author and travel writer. You can respond to this column by visiting her website at www.jaehakim.com. You may also follow "Go Away With..." on Twitter at @GoAwayWithJae where Jae-Ha Kim welcomes your questions and comments.)