The ballot for the next family holiday. November 2019. As a young lad – in the years before smart phones, the Internet and more than two television channels – I would spend hours pawing over atlases, encyclopaedias and novels from all over the globe. Sure, I might have been stuck in a dying, deindustrialising town (downgraded from a city, such was our fortune) on the north west of an island that served as the butt all the jokes of the rest of the state (which itself served as the punchline of the jokes of the rest of the country), at the arse end of the World; but that very same World was at my fingertips, with a little bit of help from a library card. While I may have lamented never getting the chance of crossing those seas and seeing much of that World myself, I tried to keep my mind and imagination open. Therefore, now we are of means, and my kids are old enough to survive a bit of discomfort, I am keen to help them see as much of the planet while I have some kind of infl