Tim Dowling: family holiday soundtrack

Our most consistent family holiday tradition started as a mistake: a failure to travel with more than one CD. The first time it happened, the CD was called The Wheels on the Bus and Other Songs. The second time, when we should have known better, we were trapped in a hire car with nothing to listen to but a collection called Songs From Around the World (32 kids songs). At first I thought the repetition might make me insane, but by the end of the week I came to believe that you haven't really understood Yellow Bird until you've heard it sung by a chorus of schoolchildren from the Midlands.

We bought a case that holds about 20 CDs, but it only served to keep our carefully selected music together on the kitchen table, where we left it. Then a search of the car would turn up one mildly damaged disc that had to serve as our holiday listening. We once spent a fortnight in Cornwall with nothing but Scouting for Girls' eponymous debut for company. I recently met the band; it was like being reintroduced to one's captors.

After a while this consistent failure was recast as an intentional practice, part of a larger scheme to travel light. We took nothing but Now That's What I Call Music 61 (disc 2 only) to the south of France for 10 days. It has Crazy Frog on it, so that should give you an idea of my state of mind by day eight.

One summer I burned a playlist of crowd-pleasing, inoffensive standards on to a disc and christened it the "Cool Fun CD". Unfortunately, I was the only person in the family who thought it either cool or fun. We had the Arctic Monkeys instead, all the way to Scotland and back.Restriction of choice, we discovered, is the key to in-car harmony: there is nothing to argue about, and even if nobody likes an album at the beginning, everybody has memorised it by the end. Last year, after earnest deliberation, the oldest child selected the Felice Brothers' God Bless You, Amigo for our fortnight in Spain. We played it several dozen times, learned it off by heart, and sang it all the way to the airport at the end. For me, it will always be associated with that time and place, because I couldn't listen to it for almost a year afterwards.

Emma Kennedy: the Cornish pasty rules

When I was a child, one rule was stamped into the core of my being: you only eat Cornish pasties in Cornwall. In the 1970s this didn't seem preposterous. I'd never seen a croissant before going to France, let alone eaten one, so it seemed logical that foods associated with a region could and should only be eaten on their home turf.

We went to Cornwall repeatedly as a family, and it is now my go-to UK destination. In the 1970s we would always camp, but after my father killed our tent by setting it on fire in a glorious Up Yours Camping moment in our back garden, we upgraded to the glorious holiday cottage rental.

The rules of arrival were always thus: bagsy a room, dump overpacked suitcase, find the nearest Cornish pasty dispensary, buy one, sit on any available sea wall, and eat while hot. For a pasty that comes pretty near to perfection, I recommend Aunty May's in Newlyn (but you'll need to be quick: they fly off the shelves in no time).

I have never eaten a Cornish pasty outside of Cornwall. It is so ingrained in me that pasties mean holiday that the thought of eating one in London, or anywhere else, feels as wrong as suddenly growing gills. And because of that, every time I go, and every time I tuck into one, I am transported back to when I was 10, sitting with my dad and grinning. Glorious.

Dixe Wills: hiding in churches

When I'm travelling, I love a good poke about in an old church. I love to read the inscriptions and I love the kneeler covers stitched by the Women's Wednesday Prayer Group. Most of all, though, I love finding potential places to hide. I imagine that I'm on the run: sometimes for an offence of which I'm wholly innocent, or at least largely innocent; sometimes from an oppressive regime. It depends on my mood. To outwit my pursuers, I decide to sleep in churches at night. In order to effect this, I must first evade any casual inspection by whoever locks up at dusk – hence the need for a place to hide. I don't want to give away the secrets of my decades of research, but I can reveal that often the only feasible location is behind the altar. Just make sure the cloth reaches all the way down to the floor or they'll see your feet. Top tip.

Laurie Graham: Venetian haircuts

We used to live in Venice and now, on our occasional return to our old Dorsoduro neighbourhood, we go through a three-part re-entry routine. First my husband gets his hair cut by Silent Barber, on Campiello Mosca. For 10 years he cut my husband's hair regularly, so you'd think he might be jolted out of his silence by someone's sudden reappearance. But no: on he snips, unfazed. I go ahead, over the bridge into Campo Santa Margherita, to the Soveco minimarket.

Soveco is a kind of Tardis of cheap goods: socks, talcum powder, canary food, bottle stoppers, plastic champagne glasses. I don't feel I'm back in Venice until I've spent at least €20 on things I never knew I needed. Then it's on to a cafe to reconvene with my shorn husband; it's our old haunt near the Carmini church, a nameless and charmingly dilapidated joint that serves very fine apple sfoglie (pastries). As with Silent Barber, our return goes unremarked by the padrone. It's like we never went away.

• Laurie Graham's latest novel, A Humble Companion (Quercus, £7.99) is out on 29 August. To buy a copy for £6.39 with free UK p&p, go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

AL Kennedy: Stratford-upon-Avon

I am exceptionally bad at holidays, because they would involve not working. But since I was a massively attractive and popular teenager, I have had a passion for Shakespeare. No. As I was not, in fact, anywhere near cool as a teenager, I embraced the beauty and life and so forth in Shakespeare with more than average warmth, and a school trip led me to believe that Stratford-upon-Avon was the place to score high-grade performances.

I therefore saved up each year to afford one summer week in Stratford, seeing as much of the RSC's repertoire as I could. In the early 1980s that was still a rewarding and wonderful thing, and tickets were either side of £5. I established a pattern which persists even now. I walk by the river – which is bloody lovely, and will offer kingfishers if you follow it far enough. I consider hiring a boat and then don't – although it is the best way to enjoy the banks.

I head down Bridge Street with a hippity-hoppity heart, and expect to come to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, though it has been replaced by a pretend-industrial-conversion. I walk along Waterside, past the Black Swan/Dirty Duck (the only pub I know with a stage name), where the ploughman's lunch would choke a horse, or leave a human very full for a good while, and head for Holy Trinity church, where I will maunder about near Bill's bones and hope to be a better typist. It's fun all the way with me.

• A L Kennedy's latest novel is The Blue Book (Vintage, £8.99). To buy a copy for £7.19 with free UK p&p, go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

Simon Hoggart: the Maine event

We first went to Stonington, Maine, in 1986, the first summer we spent in America (I was the Observer's US correspondent). Friends had an island off the coast, which was less glamorous than it sounds; it was a few acres of rock and trees surrounded by icy water. Yet it had an unforgettable magic, with glorious views over a sea in which boats and surf sparkled in dazzling sunlight.

A short launch trip took us to the mainland and Stonington, then a modest fishing village. No posh restaurants, but a diner serving classic American breakfasts (plus lobster rolls, the perfect New England delicacy), and chandlers' shop rather than boutiques selling Peruvian wind chimes. There's a small theatre, offering good amateur productions all summer. You can still buy lobsters at sheds on the shore, though world prices are now so high the lobstermen tend to live in large houses inland.

Stonington has been discovered by folk from Boston, New York and further away. We live in Britain now, but go back every few years. There is a fine wine shop, and the old general store is now a pretty fancy restaurant. But it still exerts a tremendous charm. And last year we learned sea kayaking.

Howard Marks: travel essentials/Pakistan

I have drawers full of useless travel accessories and so-called requisites: a Swiss Army knife, radio alarms, currency converters, pocket translators, adapters, SIM cards, chargers and more, most of which either never worked, have stopped working, or have been condemned to the graveyard of style. My first holiday tradition is to ensure I have none of those on me, in order to save space and avoid mindless encounters with airport security.

I am neither particularly promiscuous nor fastidiously fussy about my teeth, but I regard dental floss and condoms as essential items for any trip abroad. Floss is ideal for hanging mosquito nets and assembling clothes lines in hotel bathrooms. Condoms I use as a defence against the army of fire alarms unleashed on smokers in hotel rooms and loos in trains, airports and elsewhere – condoms fit snugly over most of them.

Most years I go to Pakistan. My love of the country began during my initial cannabis smuggling days, in the early 1970s, and the main reason for my continuing visits is to see my first connection for procuring hashish, Salim Malik. We might reminisce about the old days, but he is in his late eighties, and each of our profiles is far too high to revert to that trade now. Nevertheless, we have formed an enduring friendship, and he is my son's godfather.

I always try to visit the Kalash Valley. Despite its association with Islamic fundamentalists, freedom of religion is a pillar of the Pakistan constitution. There are churches, synagogues, Hindu temples, and pagan sacrificial altars. The Valleys of the Black Infidels, inaccessible during the snowy months, straddle the Pakistan/Afghan border and were once part of Kafiristan – setting for Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King. A century ago, Afghan Kafirs were forcibly converted to Islam, but the Pakistan Kafirs retain their own pagan religion, culture and habits.

Men and women indulge heavily in their surprisingly palatable and strong red wines and spirits and get completely bladdered at a bewildering series of full-on dance festivals. The women wear dresses tied with black sashes. Countless strings of multi-coloured beads hang from their necks, and rows of cowrie shells and bright buttons adorn their hair. They dance by stomping and shuffling through an intricate series of cartwheels and polka dance-step circles to drums, handclaps, flutes, penny whistles and catcalls. Either gender may marry or divorce a spouse of any nationality or religion. There are no police, no prisons, no written law, no written language, no word for "goodbye." Nowhere else worth going.

Phil Daoust: Lac de Longemer, Vosges, France

I used to live in the Vosges, a thickly forested, mountainous corner of eastern France. Now I just go there on holiday. There is one spot I've just visited for the hundredthandwhatever time: the Lac de Longemer, just outside the town of Gérardmer. This long, narrow stretch of water, bordered by campsites and spruce forests, is too cold to swim in for nine months of the year, but since I first stepped into its clear, clean waters five years ago, I haven't looked at another lake.

What's special about it? Well, the snack bar at the northern end does a lovely, salty saucisse-frites – just what you need after a few hours of back- and breaststroke. But it's mostly the quiet. Motor boats are banned, and no one seems to sail or windsurf, so the only vessels you're likely to encounter are pedalos. There's not a single lifeguard or supervised bathing spot on its 2km length. It would be easy to drown here, unseen and unaided. That's part of the charm too. Every time you strike out across the lake, you are on your own. Except – if you are lucky – for the swallows wheeling overhead.

Sophie Cooke: Sutherland, Scotland

Braelangwell Lodge sits on an impossibly pretty stretch of the Carron river. My grandparents rented it every year, not for the scenery but for the salmon. I came as a child and a teenager. I recall reading novels on the lawn, gossiping with cousins I didn't see from one year to the next, swimming in the amber pools just beyond the garden, lazing on riverbanks. Now and then we would be hauled off to tramp through heather, raising grouse for the guns, or to accompany our parents on fishing trips.

I wasn't much of a sportswoman; I just loved the countryside, the river, the company, and the comfy sprawling house. Braelangwell is near the village of Ardgay, which has a train station. Up the narrow road a few miles in the other direction – upriver – is the point where the Blackwater flows into the Carron. Sandy-bottomed, slow and safe, the Blackwater is a great place for children to swim.

A bit further on is Croick Kirk, a pretty white church with a peaceful appearance and a troubled history. More than 80 displaced crofters were forced to camp as refugees in this graveyard during the highland clearances: a situation that caused a scandal as far away as London.

Time unwinds further if you walk through Amat Forest, where the great pines are one of the last remains of the ancient Caledonian Forest. The old quietness wraps itself around you: nothing but the sound of the wind in the trees and calling wood pigeons.

I still go back to Sutherland. There is something very grave about its beauty that draws me again and again, though these days I stay in artists' studios rather than fishing lodges.

• Sophie Cooke's novels The Glass House and Under The Mountain are both set in the Scottish Highlands. The Amat Estate has three self-catering cottages

Pico Iyer: internet cafe culture

The point of a holiday for me is to get away from the temptation to check emails more than once a day. Yet I step into an internet cafe in Bangkok, at 3.16am, and a door to surprise and a distinctive culture swings open. The proprietress curtseys to me as I hand over the equivalent of 30p. The other customers are ladies of the night, giggling over love letters from admirers in Dusseldorf or Berkhamsted.

I log on at the "Cyber-Café" in Dharamsala, India, and am greeted by an intimate confession in Hebrew. I visit an internet salon in Paris and face an inscrutable keyboard. In Hiroshima I push the wrong button and my message to my boss comes out in alien characters. In southern Yemen, six weeks before 9/11, I walk into an internet cafe to find veiled women in front of all 11 terminals, accessing images of dreamed-of New York.

And in Kashmir, where I write this, a heavy wooden door, locked from the inside, guards my cubicle. Two pairs of shoes are visible under another door. Cinemas are too raucous, streets too crowded … in the shadow of the Shalimar Gardens, an internet cafe is the one place where Kashmiri lovers can conspire behind closed doors.

• Pico Iyer is the author, most recently, of The Man Within My Head, price £16.99. To buy a copy for £13.59 with free UK p&p go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

Aifric Campbell: Inchydoney, Ireland

I discovered Inchydoney strand on a last-minute trip to Ireland's south-west in 1996. Since then I cannot keep away, returning sometimes more than once a year and in all seasons, often alone. I am lured back by a quality of light and air that I have never found elsewhere.

I have written parts of three novels in a beachfront apartment there, in bursts of inspiration that seem to rise out of the magnificent surf, or the scatter of seabirds at the water's edge or the afternoon sun that tints the sand orange and purple and finally sets in a glittering pink. I have tramped for miles in sun and rain, day and night, looping along across the dunes and along the winding road into Clonakilty.

And when I'm not there, I sometimes visit the beach cam online and dream that I am perched on the grassy cliffs watching the wetsuited surfers face down the horizon, arched like black lizards on their boards, waiting for the transforming wave.

The Inchydoney Island Lodge and Spa is an easy hour's drive from Cork airport and on first glance seems like an architectural insult to the coastline. But you can forgive it all for the warm welcome, the jets in the seawater pool that batter you senseless, the thalassotherapy that unravels you, the crab cakes and the relaxed and friendly atmosphere that makes it so hard to leave.

And these days, as Ireland creaks under economic strain, it's all so much cheaper than it used to be, with great value to be found in the apartments attached to the hotel.

• Aifric Campbell's novel On the Floor is published by Serpent's Tail, £7.99. to buy a copy for £6.39 with free UK p&p go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

Jeremy Strong: Kalkan, Turkey

I have been coming here to unwind for years. Kalkan, at the foot of the Taurus mountains on Turkey's south-west coast, gives me the perfect mix of sun, sea, beach, town, ruins, history, fabulous food and, above all, some of the nicest people I have met. Kalkan started as a sleepy fishing village and has now embraced tourism in a welcoming but careful manner.

High-rise buildings are not permitted, and the peaceful old heart of Kalkan town, bursting with bougainvillea, remains. The roads and paths wind down into the pretty harbour, big enough for a couple of two-masted gulets but mostly filled with smaller converted fishing boats that will take you out for a day's swimming and snorkelling around the islands and further beaches. There are plenty of delightful shops and, even better, restaurants – around 100 or so of them. Turkey is famed for its food, and Kalkan excels. Behind lie the green mountains, staggeringly landscapes and Turkey's ancient history. We love it.

• Jeremy Strong is a children's author. His latest book is My Brother's Famous Bottom Gets Crowned!, £5.99. To buy a copy for £4.79 with free UK p&p go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

Josh Howie: Deia, Mallorca

I doubt I'll ever escape its pull. Every holiday since my mid-teens has been spent in the mountain village of Deia. Perched above the Mediterranean, it has continually drawn me back over the past two decades with its stunning views and free accommodation.

That latter comes courtesy of my mum, who now lives there full-time. Her presence, and that of so many pivotal memories, means that I tend to regress to my 16-year-old grumpy self. I'm sure she doesn't enjoy my return to a state of one-word answers and eye-rolling churlishness, and who knows what the hell my wife and three kids make of it. My personality is constantly flip-flopping, and it can be difficult remembering which role I'm meant to be playing at any given moment: responsible, loving dad or selfish immature mutterer, like my father.

The saint, aka my wife, has become used to my Jekyll-and-Hyde act. It must also be strange for her to holiday among my entire sexual history, though she gets on pretty well with both of them. We first met, and I later proposed, among the rocks on Deia's beach – she guessed something was up after I didn't split the lunch bill – so playing there with our children feels like a natural and privileged continuation.

I must admit, I do sometimes stare with longing and jealousy at the rocks at the far end of the cove. It's a place I no longer belong, where the non-balding, thin, carefree teenagers that replaced my generation congregate. Drinking in the town's one real bar, Cafe Sa Fonda, among rich and poor, famous and non-famous, young and old, there are moments I almost feel as though I've travelled back in time. Though now if I'm up all night, it's because the baby has colic.

• Stand-up comedian Josh Howie is currently on tour in the UK (ents24.com)