My top travel tip is ...
Go slowly. My major journeys have been on foot with a pack animal. You see places you can't when you're whizzing past in a motor vehicle. People appreciate that you trust them when you arrive out of nowhere on foot.
When i'm travelling i always miss ...
Cheese. I always eat what locals eat but if there's no cheese, no matter how great the cooking, I miss it.
I'll never go back to ...
Afghanistan, because of the tragedies that have happened. It's often portrayed as wild and uncivilised, but I went alone as a young woman and had no problems. I couldn't bear to see what has happened there now.
My least favourite thing about travels ...
Hotels. I hate them and would do anything to avoid them. They just feel all wrong: inhuman, commercial and nasty.
My most memorable meal was ...
In the mountains of Cameroon. For honoured guests they do a special dish, which consists of cooked fish guts with a sort of doughy maize pastry. It's the only meal I simply couldn't swallow. My daughter and I were trekking with a pack horse called Egbert. I had to invent an excuse to get our host out of the hut so we could dispose of the guts. It was dreadful. When I can't eat it, that does say something.
I never travel without ...
A sleeping bag - I don't know where I'm going to end up. And notebooks.
My favourite travelling companion is ...
Myself. It's easier to form links with local people when you travel alone. When my daughter was small she travelled with me, but with an adult it's not as easy. I don't know what loneliness feels like. I suppose the fact that I write everything down means I'm sharing my experiences, first with my daughter whom I send my accounts to while I'm away, and eventually with my readers.
I always bring back ...
Very little. Maybe the occasional beautiful stone, or a weird piece of wood.
My last trip was to ...
Siberia. The silence is extraordinary. I really like Lake Baikal. It's the deepest lake in the world at over a mile and is about 400 miles long. It's very beautiful, and in winter it freezes over. When I was there, the southern third hadn't frozen as a result of global warming.
The most valuable thing i've learned is ...
The majority of human beings are good. There's so much bad news now that it's easy to forget that. In 50 years of travelling I've felt threatened maybe three times. The only time I've been mugged was in the underpass at Hyde Park Corner!
· Dervla Murphy's new book is Silverland: A Winter Journey Beyond the Urals (John Murray, £20). To order a copy for £18 with free UK p&p go to observer.co.uk/bookshop or call 0870 836 0885
