A My Hols celebrity travel special

The musician and DJ Tom Findlay, 35, formed the band Groove Armada in 1995 with Andy Cato. They are known for their hit singles At the River,

I See You Baby and Superstylin’, and have sold 2m records worldwide. Their festival, Lovebox Weekender, will be held in Victoria Park, E3, on July 19-20 (www.lovebox.net).

Tom Findlay lives in London with his wife, who is a journalist, and two children, Alfie, 5, and Pearl, 2

My hols: David Mitchell

The worst was a hotel near Grimsby. It wasn’t a hotel, it was a guesthouse at best. There was a fruit machine in reception

Background

• My hols: Tracey Emin

• My hols: Colin Firth

• My hols: Groove Armada’s Tom Findlay

• My hols: Ricky Gervais

• My hols: KT Tunstall

My hols: Robbie Coltrane

Coal fires on the beach, kirsch in the kids’ food, hotel-size waves: Robbie Coltrane loves it all

• My hols: Roger Lloyd Pack

Background

• My hols: Jimmy Carr

• My hols: Johnny Vegas

• My hols: Moby

• My hols: Omid Djalili

• My hols: Alex James

‘I GREW up in Cambridge, and Norfolk was where everybody went, so my first holiday memories are based around there. We’d stay in Blakeney, and my brother and I would get a boat and just muck about on the Broads.

But then, as we got a bit older, the family got into doing house swaps, often in Italy. I remember us all driving around Tuscany in one of those little Fiats, singing Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, trying to get up and down hills.

The swaps could occasionally be a bit random – one time, we had a family of dobermans waiting for us, and one of them was pregnant. She gave birth to about seven puppies and my dad had to deliver them all, which was a bit full on.

As a concept, house swaps were a good thing, especially if you had a decent place but didn’t necessarily have pots of money. I didn’t have any problems with other people staying in my room.

Every now and then we’d come back to find they’d broken one of my tennis rackets and I’d get a bit miffed, but I’d normally get a better one in return. And that was the nice thing: when you do stuff like that, you realise that most people, fundamentally, are pretty decent. If you’re entering into those things, where you basically give up your own house, you can’t afford not to be.

The first time I really remember going “abroad” was to America. We were in Philadelphia and it was the first time I ever had a burger, at a place called Jack in the Box. My brother and I were given $10 and we thought we had to spend it all. We got really scared because we couldn’t eat everything and were worried our parents would find out, so we tried to flush the rest of it down the loo.

Ten dollars in those days bought a lot of burgers and my parents had a big thing about finishing your food.

One of my best trips was my honeymoon, in Kenya. We went to an island called Manda for a few days and stayed at this place called the Blue Safari Club, which had a hippo that lived on the beach. He’d become displaced at some point and just lived in the sea, which was quite interesting when you were water-skiing, as they’re big animals.

Then we spent a week at an incredible place called Ol Malo in Laikipia. It was run by an eccentric British guy, Colin Francombe, and his wife, Rocky. He was a posh, former military man, bit of a tough old bird, but he used to have Hello! magazine flown out to him every week. He had a pet giraffe, and kudus that would come and practically sit down with you at breakfast. It was totally mad and very Doctor Dolittle.

Australia is the band’s second home, really, as it’s the second biggest market for us behind the UK, so we go there every year. We stay up on the beaches about 1½ hours north of Sydney. A favourite is Whale Beach – it’s near where Home and Away is filmed, and it’s just beautiful. The family stay there and, every few days, I drive into Sydney, fly off to a gig, then come back to the beach. Obviously, I do a lot of travelling with the band, and I find that much easier since I’ve had children. Once you’ve done a flight with kids, there’s nothing like being on a plane without them.

The best place I’ve ever been with my family is Ibiza. Everyone’s a bit stoned, so they’re very relaxed and very tolerant. And there’s that 1960s hippie vibe that underpins the island, with people drumming on beaches and being a bit right on, and kids love all that. They have no notion of what is or isn’t cool, so they take everything in their stride, and if there are a few random people wandering about, they actually quite like it. I find it very safe and there’s so much to do.

I’ve just bought a cottage in Norfolk, about a mile from where we used to stay. Doing it all up and making it eco was quite fun – putting in solar panels and all these strange pumps. I feel oddly at peace when I’m there. Life slows down a bit. A windswept night, with the stove going, that’s what it’s about for me. And you can’t get any mobile reception up there, which is great. I can say to everybody, “Sorry, didn’t get your call.”’

Times recommends

• 21 weekend breaks for September
• French kissing in the Lozère
• Timbuktu by motorbike Pt 5: into Mali