Budget breaks ... what's Gordon Brown's favourite holiday spot? Photograph: Dan Chung/Guardian
"Could Cape Cod become known as Downing Street West?" asked the Cape Cod Times recently. When it comes to holidays, Gordon Brown is an east coast man.
The bracing intellectual climate of Cape Cod clearly suits our prime minister in waiting. According to James Naughtie, "the first thing he does when he goes to America is to go to Barnes & Noble and load up on the latest political and economic books."
Then he heads to a rented house - sometimes shared with his brothers' families - where he can read, play tennis and talk politics with Democrats like Bob Shrum, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. Ted's brother Bobby, who was assassinated in 1968, is one of the eight personal heroes Brown singles out in his book, Courage.
Brown spent his honeymoon in 2000 at the Wequassett Inn near Chatham, a 22-acre resort with tennis courts for hire at $15 an hour and a private beach, Clam Point. Naturally, he chose one of the cheaper rooms without a sea view, which start at $170 (around £85) a night. The Wequassett is very comfortable, but not especially opulent. It is also the biggest local taxpayer, which may have endeared it to the chancellor.
The newly-weds booked economy tickets on Virgin Atlantic. Fortunately, they were upgraded.
The east coast habit dates back to the 1980s when he used to holiday there with an ex-girlfriend, Marion Caldwell. According to his biographer, Tom Bower, Brown also tackled a number of Munro mountains in Scotland with the late Robin Cook (the technical term is "bagging"), who was an enthusiastic hiker.
It is easy to understand why Brown returns again and again to Cape Cod. The opportunity to immerse himself in the world of American politics and economics, the shared language, the liberal, Democratic company - sometimes mocked as "east coast Brahmins" by less privileged Americans - all must appeal greatly to the chancellor. Temperatures hover around the low 20s, and by August the worst of the humidity has passed.
Ted Kennedy and John Kerry have both offered to put him up in August. "They're two of our best friends on the Cape," Kennedy said. "Mya [his yacht] can't wait to take the prime minister for a sail."
Whether Brown will want Mya to take him for a sail, with paparazzi lurking offshore in speedboats, is a different matter. It could be a little too reminiscent of Tony's recent sojourn on a yacht off Mustique.
Whether he chooses to brave the media glare or take refuge in the shade, one thing is for sure: Brown will be picking up Al Gore's The Assault on Reason and Alan Greenspan's The Age of Turbulence, a survey of the post-9/11 economy, from Barnes & Noble.
