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Growing up in London, Benedict Cumberbatch\u2019s hard-working parents poured their efforts into sending him to the most elite schools. But there was an unintentional side effect: jumpstarting his passion for international travel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It turned out many of his classmates had holiday homes around the world and would invite him to visit. Soon, the schoolboy found himself going beyond his family\u2019s regular vacations to the Greek town of Galaxidi south of Delphi, scoring invites to destinations in Spain and eventually Hong Kong\u2014a trip he took as an unaccompanied minor, venturing further than he ever had from his UK home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was my 13th birthday, and I was just having my mind blown by the amount of activity\u2014the culture, nature, and the scale and energy of that metropolis that had this tropical feeling,\u201d he told Travel + Leisure<\/em> on a Zoom call last week.\n<\/p>\n That early exposure to global travel is something he\u2019s passed on to his own sons: Christopher, 10, Hal, 8, and Finn, 6.<\/a> A recent Paris trip was \u201call about my middle boy Hal\u2019s love of [painter] Bridget Riley.\u201d But usually, the Cumberbatch clan is happiest immersing themselves in nature. \u201cIt’s about gaining a better understanding of how the natural world works and how to cohabit with it and respect it, whether that’s in Costa Rica<\/a> or just down the road in the countryside where we have a house,” he said.\n<\/p>\n Most unusual item you travel with?<\/strong> Favorite gift for fellow travelers?<\/strong> Favorite filming location?<\/strong> Of course, the Emmy winner\u2019s career has him constantly jet-setting to the most far-flung and fabulous destinations, but he still hasn\u2019t lost that zest for diving headfirst into destinations around the globe, always jumping on the opportunity to widen his own travel horizons.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/span> After filming 2005\u2019s “To The Ends of the Earth,” he set off on a solo adventure around South Africa and Namibia \u201cpartly because I\u2019d had a bad experience with some fellow filmmakers and wanted to reclaim my fearlessness and sense of adventure, and partly because I was that far away from home and wanted to take the time to enjoy it.\u201d The London-born actor called the trip \u201cextraordinary,\u201d remembering a lodge in Sossusvlei where he slept on the roof. \u201cYou\u2019d be woken up by a moonrise among the red sand dunes that felt like Mars\u2014it was unbelievable.”<\/p>\n Even as his own star rose, he continued his travel habit, tacking on exploration to his business trips, like in New Zealand, \u201ca country I\u2019m completely, utterly in love with.\u201d His first introduction to the island nation was working with Peter Jackson on “The Hobbit” trilogy in Wellington, and he was thrilled to return for 2013\u2019s “Star Trek Into Darkness,” especially when he finished his work in three days of the allotted two weeks.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n Instead of heading home, he was offered the chance to stay at writer-producer Philippa Boyens\u2019 home and explore the South Island<\/a>. \u201cJames McAvoy<\/a> had sold it to me\u2014he\u2019s a very keen walker, and so am I,\u201d he said of his fellow actor, who he\u2019s worked with on “Starter for Ten” (2006) and “The Book of Clarence” (2024).\n<\/p>\n \u201cIt was like [the dramatic Wales mountain range] Brecon Beacons on steroids,\u201d the two-time Oscar nominee said. \u201cIt’s just the mountains, the scale, the scope, the variety of landscape! From then on, I always wanted to go back.\u201d\n<\/p>\n He got his wish when it came time to film 2021’s “The Power of the Dog,” which earned him his second Oscar nomination. Despite being set in Montana, the filmmakers discovered there was too much manmade interference and instead found a \u201cbeautiful undisturbed piece of nature” in the South Island\u2019s Central Otago district, near Clyde and Alexandra.\n<\/p>\n With a brief hiatus between wrapping on location and restarting studio shoots in Auckland<\/a>, Cumberbatch brought his family down for a vacation in early 2020.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe were just enjoying my parents, who were on the trip of a lifetime in their mid- and late-80s, and had this incredible road trip from\u00a0Alexandra, all the way around Kaik\u014dura,\u201d he said, calling out Marlborough Sounds, Fox Glacier, Lake Wanaka, and Queenstown as highlights.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe had our notifications turned off and just had the most amazing experience,\u201d he said. \u201cBut as we were wrapping up and saying goodbye to mum and dad in Auckland, COVID hit.\u201d Before he knew it, their direct flight home turned into three flights. Having purposefully built in downtime before his parents’ long-haul travels since his dad is a severe asthmatic, the family kept pushing back their return until \u201cthe three-week sojourn lasted for five months.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Though he knows it was \u201cnot unique, because everyone had to change their holiday plans when a species-wide pandemic hit,\u201d he\u2019s grateful that it was the only true travel mishap he\u2019s had to endure\u201a other than occasional delayed luggage. \u201cYou end up in hot environments with my English and air-condition-ready clothes on, and it\u2019s like, I\u2019m not ready to be on a beach with my one pair of underpants,\u201d he said. But he never lets those hiccups get in the way, simply picking up a new t-shirt and swimming trunks and proceeding with his plans.\n<\/p>\n He admitted that circumstances like that are a welcome reminder to pack light. \u201cLess is always more\u2014that should be the motto I have stamped on every suitcase so you\u2019re not lugging half the kitchen sink with you,\u201d he said. \u201cOr \u2018I should be half full\u2019 on the inside because you might want to bring some wonderful things home and have the space for it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n In fact, during Cumberbatch’s early travels, he packed everything he needed into a backpack. \u201cYou could get a secondhand book in some little youth hostel, you\u2019d pick up a journal if yours got filled, and if you ran out of batteries, there\u2019d be a shop,\u201d he said. \u201cJust trust the world has resources\u2014maybe you don\u2019t need to have that razor charger and can actually just be hairy for a bit. The freedom of less is extraordinary.\u201d\n<\/p>\n He admitted he\u2019s still working on packing light, often finding himself stuffing items into his \u201csponge bag\u201d (Brit speak for toiletry kit) at 11 p.m. before a trip when he’s \u201ctoo tired to really think. That’s when I fail as a traveler\u2014and for the amount that I’ve done it, I still am pretty damn awful.\u201d\n<\/p>\n While he\u2019s still in the process of learning to lighten his load, the sustainability advocate does his best to stay mindful on and off the road.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \u201cI’m into the ship shower\u2014you don’t need to run the water when you’re lathering soap,\u201d The Green Rider campaign<\/a> supporter said, emphasizing the importance of water conservation in hotels and making sure housekeeping isn\u2019t changing your towels daily. He’s also an advocate for local travel and public transportation. \u201cWe\u2019ve been doing more home-cations of late, and loving it,\u201d he said, also flagging that for fellow Brits, there are greener ways to explore, like the Eurostar to Paris<\/a> or the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) to Scotland<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n That said, he\u2019s also keenly aware of how tricky and delicate the realities are. \u201cWe’re in a system that immediately makes us hypocrites\u2014if we speak out against what we feel is destroying our planet, we’re part of the system that destroys our planet,\u201d he said. \u201cUnless you sit still in a loincloth that you don’t wash, you can’t help but be contributing to it.\u201d And that\u2019s exactly why he said speaking up matters. \u201cIt’s about trying to pressure for change where it can happen and meeting people where they are in that conversation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n <\/span> For Cumberbatch, no matter where or how he travels, his passion for discovery always leads him to experiences he blesses with five stars, from stays at New York\u2019s Greenwich Hotel<\/a>, London\u2019s Heckfield Place<\/a>, and Mallorca\u2019s Son Bunyola<\/a>, to a stunning family getaway to Costa Rica\u2019s Playa Hermosa<\/a>. So it\u2019s appropriate that he’s teamed up with Amazon<\/a> for the holiday season, taking his award-winning flair for the dramatic to performing real five-star customer reviews\u2014for everything from boyfriend pillows<\/a> and bidets to sun hats and penguin pajamas<\/a>\u2014following in the footsteps of Adam Driver last year<\/a> for the online retailer’s Five-Star Theater<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s some very witty people out there,\u201d he said, relishing the opportunity to interpret their work, including one particularly notable casket review, stating, \u201cNo complaints from grandpa.\u201d He found its black humor similar to that in his upcoming film “The Thing with Feathers,” which also wrestles with those themes that \u201cmake you go on a weird journey\u201d since \u201cthat\u2019s what being a human is all about.\u201d\n<\/p>\n <\/span> And he’s thrilled that Amazon\u2019s holiday season\u2014including its Black Friday Week<\/a>\u00a0from Nov. 20-28, Cyber Monday event<\/a> from Nov. 28-Dec. 1, and pop-up Today\u2019s Big Deals\u2014will offer savings across 35 categories, including travel essentials. \u201cIt’s a difficult time economically for a lot of people,\u201d he said. \u201cSo these are genuinely helpful moments for people struggling.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n After all, the most meaningful experiences don\u2019t always come with the biggest price tag. As proof, Cumberbatch reaches back to his gap year before college, awarding the ultimate five-star travel experience to a small bedroom in the bottom of a home in Sonada, south of Darjeeling, India, that had been converted into a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, housing about 30 monks.<\/p>\n His review? \u201cBasic, but profoundly spiritual. The most aesthetically and experientially five-star experience I’ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js<\/a> Growing up in London, Benedict Cumberbatch\u2019s hard-working parents poured their efforts into sending him to the most elite schools. But there was an unintentional side effect: jumpstarting his passion for international travel.\u00a0 It turned out many of his classmates had holiday homes around the world and would invite him to visit. Soon, the schoolboy found … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Benedict-Cumberbatch-on-the-Country-Hes-\u2018Utterly-in-Love-With.jp.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9748,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9746\/revisions\/9748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}With Benedict Cumberbatch<\/h3>\n
Sun cream, toothpaste, earplugs for the sea\u2014my small family are prone to ear infections. We also always take arts and crafts materials like crayons and glue. We love to draw, paint, and journal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I should just stick to the Kindle<\/a>, but I like the tactility of having a book. When I travel on press tours, my team laughs every time they see my room because I have like five books on my bedside table when we\u2019re there for three days! But it\u2019s often my moment to read since there’s not too much daddy time in this bit of my life.<\/p>\n
A compact pair of Leica binoculars<\/a>. They just can open up an experience. You can really see the plumage of a bird on a tree or the distant cremations of a castle up on the hill\u2014it\u2019s a wonderful thing to have.<\/p>\n
I would say home [in London] when you have three kids! But it\u2019s a real treat to film in L.A., the home of movies, and New York is such an iconic location. I did a bit of filming in Babelsberg [Germany] recently, which was something else, and Iceland was a jam\u2014the land of fire and ice doesn\u2019t disappoint. But my favorite would have to be Nepal [for “Doctor Strange”]. It was not long after the earthquake, and I wanted to show that Nepal was open for business. It was also incredibly important to tap into the spiritual heart of what the film is really about: that everyone has the power to heal themselves and heal others. It was wonderful to bring that element to Marvel, especially to be filming at really holy places like Boudhanath Stupa.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nPakin Songmor\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
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\nVirgin Limited Edition<\/p>\n
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\nAmazon<\/p>\n
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