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A. That at some point I'm going to wig out. It could be in a train station where a train leaves just as you figure out the ticket kiosk, or on a beach where I lose sight of my youngest daughter, or waiting an hour for my kids to figure out how to put their snowpants on. And then I'm going to feel bad about wigging out, and want to make it up to my kids by handing them all the coins in my pockets so they can explore every weird Italian vending machine on track 28.

Q. Have you traveled to a place that stood out so much that you felt compelled to incorporate it into your work?

A. That would be what happened when I was getting a divorce and wound up sitting in my mother's house in Atterbury Hills, near Southampton, Long Island. I got tired of watching seagulls flying around through my father's old pair of binoculars and so I started exploring the gully that led to the house next door. That's when I realized all the furniture was there, all the dusty books, all the cookware, and even a ceramic pig in the kitchen with a cheesy chef's hat. I had this tremendous urge to get in there somehow, sit on a stranger's sofa, see what they were hiding upstairs, get clues as to where they had gone. And because I didn't have the guts to physically do it, I wrote about it instead. That became my novel, "The Winter Girl."

Q. Where are your favorite weekend getaways?

A. I recently traveled up to Beacon, New York. It has a great vibe and it's right on the Hudson River. You can rent out kayaks on a calm day and paddle all the way out to Bannerman's Island.

Q. If you've ever gone away for the holidays, which was the best trip?

A. It was just two hours away, but skiing with my kids in Belleayre, New York, was the most fun I've had in a long time, aside from watching my daughter's ski fall off her foot at the highest point on the chair lift. Pretending you know how to jump when you're followed by two children is kind of hard to beat, especially when you get six inches of air.

Q. What are your five favorite cities?

A. New York, Los Angeles, Dubrovnik, Montreal, Miami.

Q. Where would you like to go that you have never been to before?

A. My favorite authors -- Chekhov, Dostoevsky -- are Russian, so if the political climate ever thaws there, I'd love to go to St. Petersburg.

Q. What kind of research do you do before you go away on a trip?

A. I've become addicted to TripAdvisor and I'm not sure that's a good thing. Because when everyone likes something, you can sometimes end up at a crappy gelato place in Florence that charges $14 bucks for a single scoop. I told my daughter she was stuck with it.

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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.)

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