I'll never go back to ...
The Darian Gap between Panama and Colombia. I went in 2000 looking for orchids with Paul Winder. We were intending to be there for just a couple of weeks but ended up staying for nine months because we were kidnapped by Colombian Farc guerrillas.

My ideal travelling companion is ...
Myself. I've never really travelled with anyone else apart from with Paul to the Darian Gap. No one can stand me! I can be selfish, moaning and I get tunnel vision about plants. If I'm going to see a plant, I have to see it. That can get in the way of going to a bar or sitting on a beach.

I never travel without ...
A camera to record the plants I find and a diary to keep a note of them. I rarely photograph people.

My last trip was to ...
Venezuela in December. It was the first big trip since Colombia. The trip was ostensibly to see plants and have a holiday, but it was mainly about exorcising some ghosts. I'm an optimist, but you are scarred for life after an experience like mine. In Venezuela I was worried to start off, nervous with shaking hands. But it was crucial to go and it's helped me a lot.

When travelling I always miss ...
My plants. I miss my family too, but it's my plants I really worry about.

My idea of paradise is ...
A sort of hybridisation of the landscape of Tasmania and tropical North East Queensland. The Great Tropical Drive area in Queensland covers just 0.8 per cent of the Australian landmass, but you can find about 96 per cent of all Australian flora there. It's incredible.

The best beach I've ever seen is ...
The Philippines - all of them. I swam with turtles, which was incredible fun.

I always bring back ...
Seeds. I can't really bring back plants for legal reasons. Seeds are my souvenirs: they're what I'm going to germinate and grow in the garden of my family home, Lullingstone Castle. Some of them have never been grown in this country before.

The longest I've been travelling for was ...
Three years. It was essentially three gap years in one. I spent a year in south-east Asia, a year in Australia on a grant from the Royal Horticultural Society and then a year in Central America, which was supposed to be three weeks! I didn't go to university, so that was my education.

One of my first trips was ...
To Portugal as a teenager. I cycled from Kent on my pushbike. Three weeks, two days, four hours and 16 minutes of bum-bruising hell. But it was well worth it for the plants.

· 'An Englishman's Home' is published on 5 March, £18.99. Return to Lullingstone Castle , BBC2, from 19 March.