Alastair Sawday

OT: How did ‘Special Places’ take off?
Alastair Sawday: We began with French Bed and Breakfast — and must have hit all the right buttons, for we sold out in six months. I suspect that people were longing for a way to be more independent as travellers.

OT: What makes a stay special?
Alastair Sawday: It has to be unpretentious, genuine, either beautiful or interesting, and run by people who care about what they do. It is the owners who make all the difference. We reject ugliness, poor value for money, pure swankiness and anywhere that is purely commercial.

OT: Have you considered doing just ‘Special Places’, rather than ‘Special Places to Stay’?
Alastair Sawday: Yes — indeed we have! We have published a beautiful book about pubs and inns, and await good new ideas. How about tea-rooms? Venues?

OT: Do you still do a lot of the legwork?
Alastair Sawday: Less, perhaps, than I should. I dislike airports and planes, so my long-haul flight plans are much reduced. I do go to France (by train nowadays), Spain and Italy once a year if I can — but seem to take most of my holidays in Britain now.

OT: Is India finally offering stylish, eccentric and affordable accommodation?
Alastair Sawday: Certainly. The range of Special Places in India is astonishing; you have so many that are uniquely Indian: tented camps, palaces, hill-bungalows, heritage hotels, homestays, teak cabins, plantation houses, and other places that almost defy categorisation.

OT: The most special place to stay in India?
Alastair Sawday: I dare not answer that question, for I don’t know them all. But I am happy to praise Kerala to the skies and I had a wonderful week in Fort Cochin.

OT: And your favourite English hideaway?
Alastair Sawday: That feels like a googly! My favourite part of Britain is the area to the east of Land’s End, the wild cliffs and bays of West Penrith.

OT: You’ve done this for a decade. Are you moving on?
Alastair Sawday: I am only 61 — still full of ideas and enthusiasms. But this is a fine little company that can function well without me. Perhaps I will take longer spells away and get stuck into some environmental projects — for this planet needs a lot of help, urgently.

OT: The one thing you always pack?
Alastair Sawday: A long piece of strong string — versatile and always used. It can be a washing line, a strap, a tie for a door that won’t shut, a belt, a shoelace — and it can tie together the legs of two single beds to create a strong double.

OT: Travel advice?
Alastair Sawday: Take as little as you dare, stay — and eat — with local people, read deeply before going, linger, open your mind and forget who you are. Above all, seek out people who are contributing to the welfare of the country — and learn from them. One day spent in Chennai with the legendary Dr Muthu, the environmentalist and social reformer, was worth a week of general travel.