What's your earliest holiday memory?Most summers we went to my family's cottage on a small island near Clifden called Inishlacken.
We would take a currach to the island, which was often an adventurous crossing as the weather was changeable and the outboard motor would give trouble.
It was a real back-to-nature holiday. There were no roads, our cottage had no running water or electricity and I remember Dad dragging the orange gas cylinder around the island.
I have strong memories of fishing in rock pools, swimming, treasure hunting for sheep bones and feathers.
What was your worst holiday?I went on a working holiday to France as a student in 1992. I was doing a thesis on wine production so I backpacked around vineyards.
One night I stayed in a youth hostel in Montpelier but woke in the morning and my passport, money and camera had been stolen.
I had nothing and my French was basic. I finally got some money wired from my parents, but I was always suspicious that the youth hostel owners knew something and it was a stressful situation to be on my own.
What was your best holiday?In Romania, where I have been going for over 10 years to visit my wife's parents.
It’s a country that has been going through huge changes since the fall of communism; with a very traditional society and an increasingly modern society.
We stay in a traditional town house in the north east. They still grow a lot of their own food, something we are still catching on to in Ireland.
These houses have long gardens where most people keep chickens and pigs as well as a vegetable patch and orchard. If we were living there, we could grow a crop like lucerne and exchange it at the local farm for milk. You have cows and horses and carts passing the front of the house. There is little traffic so the children can still play on the street.
People there aspire to Western Europe but when I go there, I see how we were a few decades ago, with a strong sense of community. I find the whole experience enriching.
If budget or work were not a restriction, what would be your dream holiday?I'd like to go to China as it's such a different culture with lots of history.
If you had your pick, who would you bring on holiday with you?My wife and two children.
What's your favourite place in Ireland?Kerry, where I go to visit my parents near Kenmare. I absorb the landscape the whole time there as inspiration for my own work. I also like the journey there as the transition of landscape across Ireland is fantastic; from the Wicklow mountains, through the golden vale area and into the wildness of Kerry.
Your recommended holiday reading?On my last holiday I enjoyed the first of Stieg Larsson's millennium trilogy.
Where will you go to next?I'm taking a short trip to England this summer to visit my grandparents in Chipping Campden, a typical chocolate-box Cotswolds village.
- Tim Austen, landscape architect and owner of Austen Associates, recently appeared as a judge on RTÉ's Super Gardenprogramme.
- In conversation with Genevieve Carbery