Travel: Phil's just plane crazy By CATHERINE WOULFE - Sunday News
NEXT time you're muttering about a delayed train or overbooked flight, spare a thought for The Amazing Race presenter Phil Keoghan.
The 42-year-old Kiwi is a born traveller, and had visited 60 countries before he was picked up to present the globetrotting reality show nine years ago.
Since then Keoghan has trailed competitors through 73 countries in 16 races which sounds amazing, sure, but also amazingly exhausting. During our phone interview, Keoghan seemed tired just thinking about the innumerable airports he's had to negotiate.
"Inevitably you're going to be delayed somewhere," Keoghan told Sunday News.
"Always have a book. Always have a movie. Always have a notebook. And then always have a sense of humour."
Luckily, jetlag doesn't bother Keoghan much, and in true Kiwi bloke style, he's not inclined to fret when his suitcases go AWOL, which happens about once a month during filming.
The one thing that really makes this seasoned traveller fret is stormy weather during plane trips.
"Engines on fire are scary. Emergency landings, after electrical fires in the galley, that's not pleasant. Smoke in the fuselage is not good [but] I'm not so much worried about the plane falling to bits, just weather. I don't like bad weather, it makes things more... challenging."
Keoghan says the west coast of New Zealand and the Coromandel, where his family have a house they use as a bolthole, are two of his favourite spots in the world, along with Italy and the Alps. He is determined to get to Nepal, but says it has continued to elude him; he's had four trips there cancelled so far.
But wherever the race takes Keoghan, he and the crew make sure they take a step back from the chaos of filming and simply enjoy the scenery.
"[A colleague] will say something like `alright, hold on a second guys, it's time to take a moment' and then we stop and we look where we are, and we reflect a little bit.
"We have had some incredible experiences, from the Outback through to Africa or Russia, wherever, it's very important to do that."
So does life as a TV star mean Keoghan gets the first-class treatment now?
"I have been lucky enough to travel very well and unlucky enough to travel in diabolical situations," he says. "Once I was picked up by a corporate jet and when I say once, I mean once. It only happened once – no customs, no lines, no waiting..." He sounds wistful.
"I was picked up in a car, driven to the airport, they walked me through a little reception area, after giving me a cool drink, and escorted me out to the plane ... a brand-new plane with leather seats, I was the only person on the plane and I had someone looking after me ... it was pretty ridiculous."
Surprisingly, Keoghan found the luxurious experience rather deflating. "Because if I had `made it' I would be having that every day. That's when I knew that I hadn't made it."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-news/news/3364467/Travel-Phils-just-plane-crazy
