Don't get me wrong, I like going to places, seeing sights and taking humorous photos in front of famous landmarks.
But I also very much like being at home. I'm extremely comfortable here with no shortage of entertainment options.
The greenness of the grass on my side of the fence pleases me and I have a terrific selection of herbal teas available at all times.
Host of Travel Man Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd, Gadget Man) seems a man after my own heart. In just about every way going he is the exact sort of person who should not host a travel show. This is exactly what makes him so damn good at it.
Travel Man is best described as an anti-travel show. Don't confuse that with being anti-travel, although Ayoade frequently voices bemusement or dissatisfaction at the various tourist traps he visits. Instead, I mean it's the complete opposite of the typical saccharine nonsense that passes for telly travel.
The show forms part of the Freeview channel Choice TV's travel-themed Monday nights. It screens at 8.30pm, awkwardly sandwiched between Charlie Boorman's Extreme Frontiers: USA, a show that follows some guy's cheery motorcycle trip around America, and Getaway, a loathsomely chirpy travel brochure masquerading as entertainment.
Travel Man follows in the reluctant tradition of fellow Brit Karl Pilkington, who humorously moaned his way through three seasons of An Idiot Abroad. The difference being that Pilkington was perpetually miserable. Ayoade throws himself into the task of presenting palatable holiday packages with a determinedly over-enthusiastic glibness and purposefully wry detachment.
As introduction to the show Ayoade says: "My stated goal is to show you the component parts of a weekend away with the minimum of minutage, coin and faff."
Each week he invites a celebrity guest to spend 48 hours with him exploring an exotic destination, such as Istanbul, Marrakech or Reykjavik, in the "most ruthlessly efficient way possible".
In the first episode he's joined by English actress Kathy Burke in Barcelona. He flies, she takes the train and the show opens with him outside the station, bespectacled and bedecked in a bespoke brown suit, book tucked safely away in pocket.
As Burke wanders over lugging her luggage he scolds her, "Finally rocking up ... I've been waiting here for about two minutes. I'm livid."
It's an exchange that typifies his approach and his humour; a nerdy impatience mixed with an outsider's cool and topped with light disdain for everything that's not gadgets, "marbles, books and French new wave films".
He really does seem to be his character Maurice Moss from the excellent sitcom The IT Crowd.
"Seven-and-a-half million tourists fling themselves here each year," he tells Burke as their tour of Barcelona begins in a cycle-powered rickshaw, "And while I instinctively reject majority verdicts, this level of popularity must be taken into account."
Arriving at the fabled "cathedral of ball-kicking" that is the FC Barcelona Stadium and Museum, he tells her, "I feel it's my duty to pour scorn on this."
Wandering past the club's stacked trophy cabinets, Burke reveals that all the glittering silverware is making her "a bit emotional". He shoots back, "is boredom an emotion?"
As she mugs it up for a greenscreen photo with local football legend Lionel Messi he reads his book. After being coerced into having his own photo taken with Messi he stands on the spot, reading his book.
"I wouldn't put my arm around Messi," he tells the increasingly exasperated photographer, without raising his eyes from his book, "I don't know him."
Travel Man is the travel show for people who don't like travel or travel shows.
Not only is it hugely funny, it's also, surprisingly, hugely informative. Ayoade doesn't miss a chance to drop some sweet facts (did you know Barcelona was the birthplace of ChupaChups?) and frequent onscreen pop-ups display the cost of everything, from hotel rooms to haircuts.
Unlike those phonies over on Getaway, Ayoade keeps it real, making this most reluctant TV travel guide the most inspiring of the lot.
