JOSIE Gibson is on a mission to experience first class around the world – but has said there is a UK spot she loves even more.
The new Channel 5 series Around the World in First Class, has given Josie the experience of a lifetime, but she tells Sun Travel that actually, there’s no place like home.
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From the Middle East to the Caribbean and Scandinavia, This Morning presenter Josie has experienced first class from lounges to yachts and private islands, and she’s loved every minute of it.
Josie, 40, joked: “Well, when they said they wanted me to travel first class around the world, I thought, ‘oh no, that sounds a bit too much like hard work’.
“They twisted my arm in the end and it was amazing. But the biggest eye-opener of all for me was how you get treated.
“This was the first time I’ve ever travelled in first class, and honestly, I felt like Taylor Swift.”
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However, when it comes to taking breaks along with her six-year-old son, Reggie, Josie said she’d rather stay on UK soil.
Josie said: “I’ve been travelling the world doing this show, but look at what we’ve got here – I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as the Jurassic Coast.”
She continued: “I love going to new places, but I’m happy to go in a caravan. I go to Ladram Bay, Sandymouth in Bude, Tintagel, Newquay.
“The world is amazing, we are so lucky to have that on our doorstep.
“You get in a motor and it only takes a couple of hours to get to the most beautiful scenery in the world.
“I love exploring, whereas my little boy, he’s a bit of a homebody. Reggie loves being at home, but when I was a kid, I loved being out and about.”
As for where Josie would recommend anyone seeking affordable luxury should go, she has some suggestions.
She told us: “I was really taken back by Doha, they had some of the best hotels I’ve ever been to.
“And in London, they’d be something like £1000 a night, but in Doha, you’re only looking at £200 – it’s very much a cheap luxury.
“They do everything bigger and better in the Middle East, the architecture is unreal, and everywhere’s so Instagrammable, it’s like being in another world.”
Going back to her own childhood, Josie insists she would never had believed she’d be on luxury yachts and lounges.
She said: “If I told my younger self when I was growing up, that I would be experiencing this one day, I wouldn’t have believed you in a million years.
“I am one of six, and we didn’t really go on holidays. We used to go to a lot of fairs like Stow Fair and Appleby.
“My mum would drive around and around to make us think we’d gone far away from home, then we’d stop and pitch up a tent – but actually, it was only round the corner.”
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In the last episode of Around the World in First Class, Josie heads to Hong Kong, a place that really took her by surprise.
“Hong Kong was immense and I’d love to go back. It wasn’t what I expected because it has all these little islands you can visit with beaches, waterfalls and crisp white sand.
“You’ve got fishermen that live on the sea, and you can go to a restaurant on a boat where they will cook the fish in front of you.”
Luxury is all about the finishing touches, and there was something that Josie had never come across before.
“At one hotel, they wouldn’t let me unpack my bag. And at another, my clothes were crinkled from my suitcase, so I could put them in a separate wardrobe to be ironed.
“Then someone sneakily came in to get them, they iron all my clothes and pressed them, and then hung them back up for me to wear and shined my shoes.
“Then I saw my pillowcase which had my initials on, because they’d sewn them on. That’s mad isn’t it?
“But I’ve only got one, so I’ll have to go all the way back for another pillowcase.”
The hardest thing for Josie since filming the show in her own words was “going back to economy.”
Watch the final episode of Around the World in First Class on Friday 21 March, 8pm, Channel 5. And stream all episodes on 5.
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