Celebrity Travel: Go Away With Melissa Francis
Q. What's your idea of a perfect vacation?
A. Going someplace that I've never been to before. My husband is more hardcore about that than I am. We've gone back to the Big Island of Hawaii and Bermuda, but he rarely wants to go to the same place twice. I'd love to go back to Greece. That was one of my favorite trips.
Q. Do you prefer domestic or foreign travel?
A. Honestly, I love both, but if I had to pick one, I'd say I have a slight preference for foreign travel at the moment. I just spent some time in Vienna when I covered OPEC. It was one of the most beautiful and romantic cities I've ever been to. It's so Old World. My husband and I took a romantic trip to Prague once. It's a vibrant city that has fantastic nightlife and amazing restaurants. It was a wonderful blend of modern and classic Old World.
Q. When you travel for work, how much time do you have to go sightseeing?
A. We always try to find some sliver of time when you can go out and see something. The thing we always sacrifice for this is sleep, so that we can get out even for an hour or two. At the same time, you get to see many things locally that tourists wouldn't have access to. I went to Caracas, Venezuela, for work and saw shantytowns and places that I never would've if I hadn't been on assignment.
Q. How adventurous are you eating food overseas?
A. I'm embarrassed to say that I have a child's palate and am not good at trying new things. When you work with news people like I do, you're always in a group where someone will say that they want to eat the most authentic local dinner possible. And I'm like, "Oh no!" My 5-year-old child is so picky and will only eat things he's eaten before. I'm almost that bad. My 2-year-old will put anything in his mouth and say that's delicious. So food is the only part of traveling that can be a challenge for me.
Q. Are your children seasoned travelers?
A. Yes, they're fantastic travelers. We've taken our older child on trips since Day One. He puts his own things through security, talks to the pilot and flight attendants, buckles up and sits there. The 2-year-old does whatever his brother does. He wasn't easy to travel with when he was a year old, but he's reasonable now.
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