Prue Leith on her favourite travel destination

Prue Leith shares her biggest packing disaster, her favourite city, and where she still wants to visit.

Prue Leith sitting surrounded by colourful flowers, in front of a light blue wall

By Saga Magazine | Published - 6 Apr 2026

Chef and TV personality Prue Leith has made no secret of her love of travel. The South African born chef has journeyed across the globe from Antarctica to Norway and South America to Japan,

She spoke to Saga Magazine about what it was like leaving Great British Bake Off and how she's learning to love being old. But she also shared her favourite destinations and her biggest packing disaster.

Favourite city to visit?

At the moment, Antananarivo the capital of Madagascar because we’ve just been there, it has highly coloured little houses, running down the hillside to a river, with a palace at the top

And favourite country?

Again, Madagascar because I’ve just been, it’s full of the most fantastic wildlife – lemurs and there are wonderful baobab trees

The one thing you always take with you?

My laptop so I can write. My husband says there are three of us in the marriage: me, him and my computer.

I’m uneasy if I don’t have a means of writing.

Visit Madagascar with Saga

Take a tour of Antananarivo and Antsirabe, and then experience the best of the island - explore its rugged terrain, take in elegant architecture and go in search of ring-tailed lemurs.

Take me there

A close up of a ring tailed lemur — Getty

Biggest packing disaster?

I went to Lanzarote to stay with a friend, Sir Ernest Hall, who I actually fell in love with, and then was with for a while.

It's not a packing disaster but they sent my luggage to Venezuela or somewhere, and so I had absolutely no clothes or anything.

It was a KLM plane and they gave me a little pack, of boxer shorts and a T shirt. And I lived in these boxer shorts and T shirt for my entire weekend. It obviously worked!

Where do you still want to visit?

I want to go to Norway, to Lapland and up the fjords.

Cruise the Norwegian fjords with Saga. In spring when the waterfalls are at their best, or winter when you can try dogsledding or go in search of the Northern Lights.

Listen to Prue Leith on Saga's podcast Experience is Everything.

(Hero image credit: Chris Floyd)