Katie Holland: Missing Paris, pubs, pints and pupusa

ADDICTIVE: Pupusas. They taste better than they look. PHOTO/KATIE HOLLAND

LET'S make one thing clear: I thank my lucky stars that by some twist of fate I was born in New Zealand.

No matter how long I spent away from home - which turned out to be a brief eight years longer than planned - there was never any doubt I would return to see out my days in Aotearoa.

It's three years this month since I did just that. And while I love being home there are things I still miss from my travels.

I wish I could say it was the museums and culture and historical buildings, but that would be lying.

I miss English pubs; or more accurately, the English pub culture. I am yet to come across an "English pub" in New Zealand that matches the real thing. You can chuck up a quirky name, a dartboard, pints of ales and make it dark and dingy, but it's just not the real deal. I miss Sunday afternoons in a booth with a Sunday roast and a pint, yelling at the football on TV.

I miss cheap travel. Flights between countries for less than the cost of that Sunday roast. Sure it often meant flying at some godforsaken time of the morning and more often than not flying into an "airport" that was actually 100km out of your destination and meant you spent more than the airfare on a taxi. Yet no matter how many times you swear never to do it again, those 1 (plus fees) flights never fail to suck you in.

I miss the street food. In El Salvador I became pupusa addicted and we spent hours discussing the simple genius of these fried corn tortillas filled with cheese, ground pork or refried beans (or in combination). There were grand plans to return to London and set up a pupusa business, which sadly never eventuated. If any Salvadorans know where I can get one in Rotorua, let me know.

Multiculturalism. New Zealand, and Rotorua, is becoming more of a melting pot and people are generally more accepting than when I was a child. But I miss sitting on a train and hearing conversations in multiple languages or walking down a street among people of all colours, races, religions and nationalities.

I miss catching the train to Paris. I mean, come on. Whoever came up with the idea of digging a tunnel under the English Channel was a genius. Need a break or some me time? Jump on the Eurostar on a Saturday morning and by lunchtime you're sitting outside a cafe in the Quartier Latin. I miss going to Paris for the night.

"Wow moments" around every bend. Everyone will have their own. Whether it's emerging from Central Station on to the the streets of Manhattan for the first time to discover it's exactly how it looks on TV. The first dawn glimpse of Machu Picchu or a dawn hot-air balloon ride over the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia. A tiny car-less island off the coast of Nicaragua you had no idea existed where the kids deliver banana bread, dad does the pasties and mum brings the melon. Little Corn Island, I could have stayed on you forever.

I know what you're thinking, the title of this column is "When in Vegas". But I've met plenty of people in Vegas who dream about travelling but worry about money or their job or leaving people behind or they think they're too old or it's too scary or now's "just not the right time".

To you I say get outta here. It's the perfect time. And we'll be waiting to welcome you home with open arms.