Holiday Habits Anastacia

US singer-songwriter and pop diva Anastacia talks travel

INTERVIEW: SIAN THATCHER

“I've travelled all over the world with work, but I don’t get a great deal of time to go on holidays any more. My husband and I probably get a personal trip around once a year, and we always go on warm, beach-type breaks. I don’t think I’d ever say: ‘Hey, let’s go skiing.’ I’m just not into winter sports, and I’m not much of an adrenalin junkie.

“I don’t need to party like it’s 1999 and go to clubs every night any more, either. I had some wild trips when I was younger – I spent my 30th birthday partying all night and taking over clubs in Las Vegas with friends. But for me, holidays now are much tamer – they’re just about relaxing and spending time with family.

“It’s really important to have time together. I don’t understand it when people go away together but spend a lot of time apart. What’s that all about? Didn’t we come together? I’m just like: ‘If you’re going to do that, then go on holiday by yourself bro.’

“I travel a lot in Europe, and one of my favourite places is Rome. It’s hard not to love Rome, just for its architecture and the romance that permeates every space. It’s just fabulous. I love Paris, too. I learned French in school and it’s stayed with me. I think if I stayed there for even a little while, it would be easy to become fluent very quickly. Once you’ve got the grammar down in any language and learned the fundamental words that come up in regular conversation, you end up being able to decipher what’s being said most of the time.

“Of course, the UK is easy in that respect, but I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with London, mainly because of the cost of things – it’s slightly better at the moment, but for a whole year our exchange rate was just horrendous.

“My sister makes me more aware of money. I don’t really care about materialistic things, I just care about being happy. My sister is in charge of money and does my assistant work, so when I’m buying stuff and not looking at the price, afterwards she’s like: ‘You know how much that was, right?’ It’s such a buzz killer, but she’s logical – she’s one side of the brain and I’m the other, so we make a good travelling team!”
Anastacia’s new album, Heavy Rotation, is out now