Owner of luxury travel wear brand, Rae Feather joins Tanya Rose to share her travel secrets.
Rae shares how she landed her first job at Formula One, what it was like to cycle the idyllic rice paddies of Vietnam and why family holidays in Portugal are her most poignant memories.
Plus, she reveals the best meal she had after the Monaco Grand Prix and a heart-stopping encounter with George Clooney…
Don’t forget to follow @travelsecretsthepodcast and remember, you can watch all of our episodes on YouTube.
PLACES MENTIONED
Mid Ulster, Ireland
Giants Causeway, Ireland
Donegal, Ireland
Cork, Ireland
Ireland’s Blue Book
Vietnam
Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Dubai
Six Senses Zighy Bay, Oman
La Chaumière
Cannes, France
Algarve, Portugal
Marrakesh, Morocco
Casablanca, Morocco
Delhi, India
[Music] welcome to travel secrets with me Tanya Rose the podcast sharing wisdom for fellow Travelers each week I ask my guests to reveal their six travel secrets and the trips and holidays that uncover [Music] them my guest today is my wonderful friend Ray feather Ry and I have known each other for many many years we even worked together in early 2000s on Sandy Lane which was an adventure you’ve worked in Formula 1 and traveled extensively and then you set up your epitus brand Ray feather for travel clothes and fabulous personalized bags and accessories and on every single trip I go on half my suitcase is Ray feather I wouldn’t be without it and I gift it to everybody Welcome lovely Ray it is so wonderful to see you thank you so much for having me before we get into your travel Secrets perhaps you can tell us a little bit about yourself and how travel has impacted your life I was born in Ireland I moved from Ireland to the UK when I was 18 and even in my younger days or I knew that I really wanted to travel um I ended up living in London then moving out to the countryside in my early career I just fate played a very generous hand and I ended up working in Formula 1 and that was kind of like a very um lucky way I guess for me to be able to see the world someone else was paying my ticket even though I was there for a short period of time and actually I really wished that I’d kept more notes of the places that I was in um but that’s kind of where it started and um I just my appetite for Travel and Adventure still continues really did you actually travel around the circuit when you worked in Formula 1 no one actually believes this but I did we did every race and when I first interviewed for the job the job was advertised I was working at Le’s School of food and wine as PR um washer oper oh I’d done the cookery course and then I H went back to work there and then I one of the teachers said oh there’s a job that’s com in it was prior to recruitment agencies and so on and that job came in for um rally driving in someone to cook for Valley drivers in South Wales and I was like I’m not I’m not interested no and the girl said give it just call up about the job anyway fortuitously I was at the Mexican Grand Prix two weeks later they basically camouflaged it so that they wouldn’t you know they wouldn’t get a huge amount of applicants for the job and they wanted the right person and so it wasn’t rally driving in Wales at all no they camouflag that in order for and then the next interview was they told me it was for for Formula 1 and I got down to the final too and they picked the other girl and the other girl called in the afternoon and said she’d just been offered um a job in Peter dav’s boat in um the Caribbean said no I don’t think I’ll do the formula one thing you so any I got the formula one job um ET and Senna was it was his first race with McLaren oh amazing and Prost and Senna were the drivers for those years and what we did was we flew to the international events but we had one of those American Chevrolet trucks we would drive the European circuit and that no phones I couldn’t read a map to save my life to Da even and so goodness only knows how we got there one of the things that I I said to you before I wish I’d kept a diary or notes on the places that we went to the restaurants we went to all the places but of course I didn’t I know but some of it’s still in your head I’m sure so when you go oh I went there with a and CER as well yeah exactly how wonderful he’s gorgeous he was gorgeous wasn’t hege I thought I was going to be the next Mrs S did I think everyone that met him probably thought the same and he was an amazing driver wasn’t he incredible man and you’re from Ireland where are you from in Ireland I’m from terrone count terrone in Northern Ireland um my family my mother still lives there my brother lives there my sisters live in Dublin so I spend my time between the North and the South so that probably takes us nicely into travel secret number one which is what’s one destination that you feel everybody should go to once in a lifetime I really thought long and hard about this this and I actually do think Ireland my love of Ireland was never always as great as it is today and as I got older um I couldn’t wait to get out of Ireland if I’ve been honest I was uh I was brought up in the troubles in mider which was a really major searan part of Northern Ireland where the most trouble was it was very well publicized that there was um mider was not a great place so I it was kind of a subconscious thing I wasn’t you know it was a very it was way of life however we were checked everywhere the Army were everywhere my parents had businesses blown up we had many people who we we knew we lost because it’s such a small country inevitably one would know most people the families exactly so I guess without it being that conscious I just knew that I want didn’t want to be in Ireland so I left Ireland at 18 my mother L she was like get out she said I remember the day you left I said yeah you do you could not wait to get really she wanted you she wanted me I went to Le and I basically did so poorly on my a levels that’s why I ended up doing what I did thought about going to University and then but you know what it was the best thing I ever ever did in my life and anyone that would it’s very I think it’s changed so much since then I was at the little school in nodding Hill which was this tiny little space and now I understand they’re in Mass premises somewhere else but anyway um that opened up so many doors for me it’s not always the right path going to University and you’ve had an amazing career yeah and I’m sure you’ve never look back on that have you no I think there are times ever you know when one has their own children one’s own children you know you try your best to kind of guide them and may I think back then no I didn’t it didn’t bother me at all but maybe today I think maybe I’d see it differently so going back to Ireland where do you suggest people going they haven’t been to Ireland before what would be a a place that you think should people should go to First well from a very young age my parents worked and we we had a caravan in um up on the northern coast and I ended up actually going to school up there as well but along that North Coast where the Giants Causeway is and where Game of Thrones was was filmed we had a lady called Mrs Sanford who was sent to look after us and was my brother my sister and myself and she wasn’t that Keen on my brother and I but loved my sister Helen so she’d basically pack us off in the morning with a jam sandwich and a bucket and Spade and her Wellies and her little anara and I’m not joking from the age of maybe 67 we would just roam around we’d go down to the Rock Pools by ourselves we’d have a towel and we’d swim and I mean it must have been freezing but we didn’t mind it we had all our little friends we play table tennis like the famous five it really was a bit like was quite feral I suppose but at the same same time I was never happier and um then going back there so I went to school there and then subsequently slowly going back my parents bought our little cottage in duny G about 40 years ago beautiful and we would go back and forward from there a bit and that uh so there is a place called ardra and Port new it’s almost the furthest point you can get to America on the coast but on a good day it’s like the Caribbean the beach is G for Miles Wonder Sandy sand white white pinky white sand beautiful um it’s very very rural I’m not so sure that you’d want to spend that much time there outside maybe summer months um or maybe you would it’s it’s just it’s windy very windy and there isn’t a huge amount to do but you feel so close to Nature and I think going back to what I said before I think all those things are actually contributed to where contribute to where I am today and just love it up there the other place to go is go down down the West Coast go to Cork um skull can sale all around there they get really busy in summer months but the beauty of Ireland is you could actually go at any time as long as you don’t mind getting a bit weather beaten there’s always a pub somewhere I was going to say a wonderful Pub singing fabulous people and there really are that it really is like that of course it’s not like that everywhere and up the wild Atlantic Coast so that drive all around Ireland is pretty special and there’s also a book called The Blue Book which you can get which has got some incredible bnbs and it’s a very well-known publication so very affordable as well very very affordable I mean Dublin is not so affordable anymore but listen where’s affordable you know what I mean it’s kind of it’s all relative but you can find places to go in the blue book that’s the blue book is a really good um publication to kind of go and also your sister this is another the travel secret she has the most amazing shop she has where is her shop her Shop’s in Dublin she was in a little um she was in an area called Randa and she closed that shop and she’s now in a place called sandyford but she has a lifestyle store that is kind of sits over two floors and um it’s pretty special it’s amazing and on her Instagram everything that she does I want her tablescaping or what she does for Easter or Christmas she has the most amazing does she actually do Interiors as well well she’s she is more dyslexic than I can even say well she’s very clever but she’s just got the most incredible taste my mother was an inter my mother actually left us didn’t leave us leave us my mother left us when she was about 40 and went and did inch ball for a year how did she interesting and my mother’s one of 13 children started business with my family at 20 and basically they built up this kind of they had it started off with a paint shop and then they went on and she too has a store in um Ireland but and still works every day she’s 82 how fantastic she’s incredible and I see your mother on your Instagram she’s a wonderful model for a lot of your things she’s fantastic she L she loves the modeling so let’s go into travel secret number two what’s the most unexpected trip that you’ve ever taken or place you’ve been to well I think that probably is we did a uh a charity bike ride with click I don’t know do you remember cck cck definely absolutely and I was invited to go on this bike ride from Vietnam to Cambodia how amazing it sounds like it was being brutal but actually it was quite flat and we were with the most wonderful group of people it was very strict you know you were there in the morning you did your I think we were probably doing 40 mil a day but it was very flat the trip itself was like I I think it was not perhaps the it was a time in my life whenever I was going through a really major transition and I hadn’t really given it a huge amount of thought as to what I was doing and when I got there what it did for my soul was something that I can’t explain like the Vietnamese we were cycling through very rural places Patty Fields Patty Fields it was honestly almost all pretty rural as you can imagine there was 40 of us in bikes we’re not going to start you know going through really busy places and then we crossed over into Cambodia and getting to Anchor wat which I had done Absol absolutely zero research on so that must have been breathtaking so the last point we we finished at Anor wat and I was like what’s this all about you know having done no research this place built in the 12th Century 12 13th century and rediscovered in 1840 that was like the I was I was a I was really cross on myself for not having done a little bit of research and blown away by this incredible City that had disappeared and did you have a guide one you got there telling you about it yes absolutely so then then you learned what it was all about yeah we learned uh but I definitely want to go back there that was kind of probably the big did you do that trip with Eddie Jordan because I know he did and he must have been such fun oh we’ve had a lot of fun with Eddie Jordan and his band and his band we still continue to have good fun with Eddie Jordan sing songs Etc he’s great fun he’s he’s just such his Zess for life is incredible yeah and you probably met him doing Formula 1 did you yeah I got a I was told I was in motor home this day and someone said and Eddie had just started his Formula 1 team and um he said Eddie Jordan’s asked you to come down and see him he hears this an Irish girl working in the paddock and I went down and he was so aw he was so he’s you know what Ed he’s like he’s so outrageous and I was I thought there I cannot be friends with this man he is he has since become he’s Godfather to one of my kids his wife has become probably one of my best friends his kids and I are very close and um he’s one of the most generous he’s Eddie’s done so much for me through my career as well he’s been a great great um Ally great friend very very generous loving man also mad as a box or frogs mad but fun and I’ve had many a fun sing song evening with him so I’m sure Cambodia and Vietnam on bikes must have been a hoot yeah on travel secret number three what is your most overrated travel experience I’ll probably do Dubai wasn’t a fan of Dubai at all weirdly um I went to Dubai in very very and before jira was even built because in within the Formula 1 program there was a a desert rally it was called the Dubai desert challenge is that like the par D car it was like the par D car and it was we were based in Dubai but there was two hotels there was the Intercontinental and another one I can’t remember the B Arab had that not been absolutely not we talking I I hate to say this I was thinking about this driving up today when was that time was about 35 years ago but how Dubai it’s unbelievable so back in those days you’re thinking gosh definitely something going on here and then going back again I it’s very personal I was not a fan I went to Dubai many many years ago when the balab was first built and then when I went back again it was just a traffic jam yeah there was so much traffic there’s a lot of beauty there as well don’t get me wrong I’m I and I full respect to anyone I’m not saying this disrespectfully it’s just not my bag anymore I tell you which is a lovely country in the Middle East I think is Oman have you been to Oman I’ve heard amazing things there are some amazing Resorts yeah like Ziggy Bay and so if you want that sort of winter sun 4 hours 5 hours flight um it’s got much more to it I love to try by the way horses for courses as well I don’t mean to be mean to I let’s go on to food and drink food and drink is what we all live for wherever we travel it’s such an important part of our Lives where’s the best restaurant you’ve been or the best meal or the best cocktail when you’ve been traveling my favorite restaurant of all time and you will know this restaurant and we’ve never talked about it is leier oh I love that restaurant yeah and you’d probably love this restaurant and in Formula 1 days Monaco was easily the hardest race we did it was really difficult because it was a lot of huge amount of walking there’s a lot of barriers put up at different times obviously for the cars and so on so we didn’t have access to get to places very easily and we were all we knew that it was always going to be a really difficult race so on that night whichever night it was Thursday night I think we would go religiously to leier and I remember the first time I walked in it was also it it also coincides with KH Film Festival yes it does absolutely so you weren’t quite sure who you were going to see in there it was just every so often hear little Whispers And you’d turn around and you wouldn’t quite you wouldn’t know could be there anyone which actually another funny story about Monaco I’ll just tell you very quickly was I was waiting for guests one day at the beach Plaza hotel by myself completely by myself kind of sitting there waiting for guests to come down and I looked up and four men walked past me and it was George Clooney Brad Pit Andy Garcia and Matt Damon and they had all obviously they were obviously all at the can film festival and um were’re doing a promotion during the time was that Oceans 11 they were o 11 exactly and you didn’t speak to them I didn’t speak to them I should but they did actually look down at me and at the way that I looked at them they all kind of smiled and walked on it was actually a very special moment very handsome gorgeous cast amazing do you go to the south of France still we actually for a little while spent a lot of time in manb and around that area of provance in fact bought an old farmhouse but were you the quotes that we got to do it up were way way way way way way way less than the quotes to actually do it up and then whatever happened in life it didn’t actually H work out that we did we developed it but again it was a very very very special time of my life and I absolutely love that but back to the Shier the one thing that you will remember about it is the rawness of that as well it’s basically the meat on the fire the beautiful bread the cruded te it’s very simple but so Chic and very cozy it’s not even a big restaurant is it no not at all no it’s I actually went on last night to look at the menu to remind myself and actually not a lot has changed no when when you’ve got it right why change it absolutely and actually pricing wise it’s fine as well compared to some of the other restaurants I don’t remember it being that much different in price then than it is today and I know you said you bought a farmhouse in the south of France but didn’t you then go to Portugal and buy something because you go to Portugal quite a lot don’t you my parents bought in Portugal probably again nearly 30 years ago um we have an old farmhouse there that um has recently just had some work done in it but at any given time there could be 14 of us staying there and that’s in the Alo is it that’s in the Algarve it’s in this space between kago and vobo yeah love you and it sits way off the road so it’s very very private but it it’s not one bit Swanky cuz all around there now it’s become so beautiful it’s so manicured it’s a very very very special place to me as well there’s many things about it that I’ve changed over the years but the beach has never changed they’re amazing we look after the Vita Park which is an amazing Hotel really really beautiful fantastic Beach it’s got a farm outside where you can go for the day and you see where all the produce comes from it’s really fabulous and don’t you do a popup every summer there I did for a while but I haven’t done one for a while I had a great little shop there yeah you did I remember it was so much fun wonderful I was it was like being on holiday but working at the same time at lunch time another a glass Ros absolutely perfect so travel secret number five what is your best Insider travel secret or tip in the early days when we started doing the baskets I’d have to go to mares quite a lot and even mares since visiting first time to where how it is today is oh my goodness it’s crazy but don’t ever be afraid to go outside the city a little bit and there are some amazing properties outside maresh that you could visit and the other thing that I’ve done there is I’ve taken a train from maresh up to Casablanca have you how interesting and that was really fun um the trains are so ancient but absolutely Charming you’ve got your own little um it’s like having a compartment a little compartment and um some ancient um conductor comes along and sits and has a chat with you and in my worst friend I communicate B Bon let’s put it and um yeah that’s a good one and then India which is so dear to my heart and somewhere that um I um I absolutely love going to um when I started Ray feather we worked in Portugal and I found it all just so soulless with I love the Portuguese but it was that kind of working in gimar which a lot of the fact up in Porto and so on which are very beautiful places but going in Winter and walking into factories and I just never felt like I didn’t look forward to trips put it that way I always felt they were quite flat and it was really it was really laborious hard to do business and even though everyone was so welcoming and it is quite wonderful up there as well but when I first went to India it was like okay I found my people and whilst it throws so many curve balls it still is somewhere that’s really really dear to me and in Delhi do all the things they tell you to do but also go off the Beaten Track there as well a little bit there’s so many really interesting little markets you can visit and so on so many restaurants and enclaves of restaurants that are absolutely wonderful also looking for Fabrics visit neru Place go just to have a look around that it’s by it’s quite daunting because it’s where all the locals are also and it can be a little bit um it can be a little bit scary to start with but India is actually incredibly safe incredibly safe so therefore don’t let that stop you from having a look around is neurop place a sort of area where they do Fabrics that’s nearu place so it’s not a shop it’s it’s literally it’s n place it it’s there’s probably about 40 fabric places more maybe but it’s all sorts of fabric but the thing is you don’t go and buy you go along and you think okay this go for inspiration more than actually buying the Fabrics you can’t buy them on the spot so to speak and if you it’s often a risk you go to explore you go for inspiration as opposed to actually purchasing bulk Fabrics at that time and when you set up Ray feather I remember you telling me it was because you couldn’t find the sort of holiday where that you wanted we are in a very very very crowded um Arena right now in almost every aspect of retail it’s Beauty food uh clothing all of those things I believe that quality and affordability I’ve got to go hand in hand today and I felt I struggled to do that yes I could buy that CF tan at500 which by the way I’m sure if you buy a CF ton at £500 you will love that cfan and wear it forever but I felt like just with good quality Cottons and good shapes that could be accessorized and just add a scarf or a nice pair of sandals or a bit of jewelry could become something that was actually quite a special look and that really was the ethos behind me wanting to create good quality affordable pieces that people didn’t feel like they were that they knew that they could buy and put away and know they were going to take them out for the next three years yeah and actually when I go on holiday I have my towel it’s not called a towel that I put on the the bed with my initials on it then I have my Ray feather basket with my initials and the pink stripe then I have my L hat which you created and probably a few cfans and the scarves and the the necklaces and you just feel slightly different from everybody else not everyone else is wearing the same thing it’s great well I also think that there is something very special about not so much special I think if you were going somewhere for a nice dinner to in London for example you want to look you want to feel good and I think it’s about feeling good and feeling comfortable and if you feel good and feel comfortable the chances are you’re probably feeling good about yourself and therefore you have a better time and I think if you’re on a holiday majority of the time you’re going to try something special and something a bit different maybe try new restaurants and it’s that thing of walking in and thinking you know what I feel great and I’ve got my Lippy on I’ve got my nice calf ton on I’ve got my bag and therefore it’s kind of yeah you can it’s a level of sophistication maybe or I don’t know it’s just about that confidence that maybe something like that get are you a good Packer absolutely Dreadful horrendous oh I’m so glad to hear you say that cuz I am really the worst Packer and I I spoke about this when triny was on the podcast she’s the most amazing pack I imagine and I said to her please come and give me a lesson because I am so appalling I travel all the time and I have bags and bags I throw it in and it’s just not not good yeah I get to the scales and and I’m like ah I’m def I’m definitely going to get done today and I just accept it almost if I don’t I even I was flying back we were at a family wedding in Portugal this weekend and I went up and I was almost had my card out and she said oh you’ve booked three bags in and I said Happy Days hooray pay anything today let’s go on to the next travel secret what is a memory of a holiday or trip that you have taken that is still poignant to you today you know again Tanya there’s been so many I think probably early days in Portugal with my children were the most special days wherein you know they’d get up in the morning they the hair would be all of their little brown bodies um and sleepy faces coming in for a hug and you knew that you just were going to have the most special day and as much as it was basically breakfast um playtime and then Beach all day fish restaurant wherein everyone would just muck in and we’d stay in the beach until way past Sunset sometimes and then go home and we’ve got a massive great table that sits in the Terrace and everyone would sit around and chat and play games and those days were really really special today perhaps I think probably the Taj Mahal I had this really funny conversation again quite ignorantly well very ignorantly I was in um Delhi and I get along really well with my factory owners he’s very very funny the and the relationship has built up over the years it wasn’t kind of automatic but we have got I really enjoy his company he’s very funny and um I said to him this day really want to go to the Tash Maha and he said I’ll pick you up in the morning and I said it be ridiculous he said I’ll pick you up in the morning and I said it must be so far he said three hours picked me up in the morning and we had the day at the Taj Mahal it was such a special day it was just we we went to the Mandarin I think there’s a Mand next door we had lunch there and we spent the afternoon having not even considered that I was going to be able to do this or that even the proximity was close enough and the funny thing is we’re driving down the motorway his son carik is driving and I said cartic there’s a there’s camel racing towards you he said I know and I said no no there’s a camel racing towards you and there was a camel racing up the motorway which for them was you see cows everywhere actually is very scary driving in India I think I’ve never been so scared they do that chicken and I just closed my eyes and I do the jaur deli to jaur quite a lot and that is it’s brutal and every time you think yeah but the airport’s going to be busy you know what it’s brutal it is brutal yeah that takes us very nicely on to the last question which is I asked you to bring a photograph and talk about the photograph and how that sums up travel for you it has to be India I think um I’m actually traveling to India today for work and you know it’s that thing of I find when I come back from India my soul is Fuller I don’t say bad words for a couple of days I basically am quite I seem to speak quieter there’s something about it that’s just very very Soulful and I know it’s a crazy country and it’s growing rapidly and it’s it’s just so it’s evolving in a way that we just can’t even believe I’ll go back this time to where I stay and I’ll see I’ll see a change it’s really cleaned up as well it’s much much more I mean they’re miles they they even though it doesn’t seem that they’re miles ahead of us and many things but I think it’s that thing of every time I leave India I’m sad to leave mainly because I think it does my soul good and the photograph is you at the Taj Mahal on that day picture it’s yeah it’s a random photograph that they took of me that day at Taj Mahal I look happy and it reminds me of a really probably real turning point in my life as well you know you get to that age Tanya whenever you just kind of things seem smooth out and the things that bothered you before don’t seem to bother you so much anymore that kind of the photograph brings me back to that time very Princess Diana that’s actually what someone commented on and if I posted it someone said very Princess Diana whatever I’d written on it Ray it’s been a joy and Delight to go around the world with you thank you so much for sharing your travel secrets with me and have a wonderful wonderful trip to India thanks Emilia and Tanya thank you so much for having me [Music]