My number-one travel destination is probably America. I first went to New York when Baz [Luhrmann] invited me over to do his version of La bohème, and it just blew me away. I’d dreamt about the city since I was a kid, seen it in the movies, and it was everything I hoped for. Plus, America gave me my wife, which is a good enough reason to love it. She was born in Alaska. I met her in San Francisco, another fantastic city that everyone should see, and her family live in Utah now, in Salt Lake City, although they aren’t Mormons, as everyone assumes. It’s a brilliantly rugged, underpopulated state, so there is obviously great hiking. It’s easy to get out to the Sawtooth Mountains, a couple of hundred miles away, and I spend hours out there when I can. The range is part of the Rockies, and it’s this fantastic landscape, full of snowy peaks and dotted with clear, cold alpine lakes. There’s no better place to empty your mind. It’s part of the Sawtooth Wilderness, which, as the name suggests, is pretty empty — unlike, say, the Lake District in summer.
Having said that, it was the Lake District that gave me my love of the outdoors, and the taste for getting out into it with a packed lunch. It’s how I relax now, hiking or trekking. I’m not one for sitting on a beach; I get too fidgety. I never travelled very far as a kid or, indeed, as a young lad. The Isle of Man on a school trip was about the furthest, I think. I was brought up in Fleetwood, the youngest of nine kids. People make it sound like The Waltons, but we weren’t all in the house at the same time. When I came along, my eldest brothers and sisters were out making their own way in the world. There wasn’t a lot of money for holidays, so we’d spend summer down on the beach, do day trips to Blackpool or stay in B&Bs in the Lake District, which was where I discovered that I liked hill walking.
I spent a summer working at a holiday camp in Mablethorpe. It really was like Colditz We’ve just had a new baby, Alfie Junior, so my instinct is not to do too much travelling for the moment. Now the Bring Him Home tour is over, though, we’re going off on a proper holiday. It’s the first in quite a while, and my wife chose it — we’re going to Hawaii.
We had our honeymoon there, so we know it pretty well. People imagine it’s all beach and surfing, but it’s the interior that is the attraction for me. There is this one mountain, Haleakala, on Maui, which is pretty astonishing. It’s an active volcano, so, when you start walking up it, you are in this lush tropical jungle, all pineapples, palm trees and beautiful flowers. Then you reach the cloud line, and above that is the volcanic landscape.
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It’s so alien, so barren, that Nasa used it for part of the moon-landing training, and there is still an astronomy complex up there. So I’ll be doing that again this time for sure.
When I left home, I was hugely impractical. I had to learn to iron a shirt, sew on a button and cook for myself. Which I did badly. Now, though, food has become a big part of my travelling. If I could pick one city for a meal, it would be Rome. I love all Italy, the Amalfi Coast and Sorrento especially, but Rome is my perfect city. It’s beautiful to look at, historical, cultural, and the food — oh my goodness. I love to get straight off the plane and head for a big bowl of steaming pasta and a glass of something chilled. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
Two places I would hesitate to go back to are Mablethorpe and Macau. I am sure they’re both really nice, but I spent a summer working at a holiday camp in Mablethorpe, and it really was like Colditz. We used to plot ways to escape. And I was doing an opera in Macau when I got very sick. It’s a peculiar place, with a Portuguese-Chinese mix. I didn’t warm to it.
Hong Kong, on the other hand, I loved — the sheer energy and ambition, the great food and that little touch of familiar Britishness. Mind you, Tokyo was the first Asian city I ever went to, which had nothing familiar at all. It was a real baptism of fire. You can feed off the energy of the place, though — and, for a culinary adventure, it’s up there with Rome.
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The tenor Alfie Boe, 38, is best known for his role as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, and for his show-stopping rendition of Bring Him Home. Born in Blackpool, he was working at a car factory when he successfully auditioned for the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company. He subsequently studied at the Royal Opera House and sang Rodolfo in Baz Luhrmann’s La bohème. His Alfie Live DVD was released last week. Married with two children, he lives in London