Sunday Times Travel Weekly talks to artist Neil Coppen

Your favourite city abroad and why?

Mumbai because they have the most beautiful art-deco cinema palaces. Cinema is a communal event in India, and nothing beats sitting through a film while the whole audience breaks into spontaneous song along with their idols on the silver screen.

What must a first-time visitor do there?

Lose the map and follow your inner GPS. The best attractions are not the ones recommended by guide books but the ones you stumble upon.

What should they not bother with?

I'd like to say avoid the big attractions because they are over-rated, over-priced and over-populated but that would be a mistake. The Taj Mahal is a wonder of the world for good reason.

What was your worst holiday ever?

Three of my closest friends and I decided to backpack Madagascar after high school. We were hopelessly naïve and unprepared. We ran out of money in the second week, lost our tents to a tropical cyclone and nearly starved. In the end, we traded our walking boots for food and taxi fare. Joseph Conrad would have been proud.

What is the best thing you have been given on holiday ... or pinched from a hotel?

I might have borrowed a book from a backpackers' library for the following day's bus ride, but literature doesn't count. Stories were written to travel the libraries of the globe.

Have you had any embarrassing moments as a traveller?

In Mumbai, I visited a restaurant thinking the dancing girls were part of a cultural show for tourists - until they started leading the male patrons upstairs for dessert.

What do you avoid on holiday?

Aussie backpackers. I got stuck with an Australian stripper on a trek to Machu Picchu. She really ruined the view with her constant yakking.

One travel destination you would call "never again"?

The Dal Lake in Kashmir. While beautiful, it also hosts the most tenacious rug merchants in the world. As a result, I have more Kashmiri rugs than I know what to do with.

Neil Coppen was the 2011 winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year award for theatre. His new play, Abnormal Loads , comes to Durban and Johannesburg in March and April respectively.