Benedict Cumberbatch on the Country He’s ‘Utterly in Love With’ and Other ‘Extraordinary’ Destinations He’s Visited

Growing up in London, Benedict Cumberbatch’s hard-working parents poured their efforts into sending him to the most elite schools. But there was an unintentional side effect: jumpstarting his passion for international travel. 

It turned out many of his classmates had holiday homes around the world and would invite him to visit. Soon, the schoolboy found himself going beyond his family’s regular vacations to the Greek town of Galaxidi south of Delphi, scoring invites to destinations in Spain and eventually Hong Kong—a trip he took as an unaccompanied minor, venturing further than he ever had from his UK home.

“It was my 13th birthday, and I was just having my mind blown by the amount of activity—the culture, nature, and the scale and energy of that metropolis that had this tropical feeling,” he told Travel + Leisure on a Zoom call last week.

That early exposure to global travel is something he’s passed on to his own sons: Christopher, 10, Hal, 8, and Finn, 6. A recent Paris trip was “all about my middle boy Hal’s love of [painter] Bridget Riley.” But usually, the Cumberbatch clan is happiest immersing themselves in nature. “It’s about gaining a better understanding of how the natural world works and how to cohabit with it and respect it, whether that’s in Costa Rica or just down the road in the countryside where we have a house,” he said.

With Benedict Cumberbatch

Must-pack travel essentials?
Sun cream, toothpaste, earplugs for the sea—my small family are prone to ear infections. We also always take arts and crafts materials like crayons and glue. We love to draw, paint, and journal. 

Most unusual item you travel with?
I should just stick to the Kindle, but I like the tactility of having a book. When I travel on press tours, my team laughs every time they see my room because I have like five books on my bedside table when we’re there for three days! But it’s often my moment to read since there’s not too much daddy time in this bit of my life.

Favorite gift for fellow travelers?
A compact pair of Leica binoculars. They just can open up an experience. You can really see the plumage of a bird on a tree or the distant cremations of a castle up on the hill—it’s a wonderful thing to have.

Favorite filming location?
I would say home [in London] when you have three kids! But it’s a real treat to film in L.A., the home of movies, and New York is such an iconic location. I did a bit of filming in Babelsberg [Germany] recently, which was something else, and Iceland was a jam—the land of fire and ice doesn’t disappoint. But my favorite would have to be Nepal [for Doctor Strange]. It was not long after the earthquake, and I wanted to show that Nepal was open for business. It was also incredibly important to tap into the spiritual heart of what the film is really about: that everyone has the power to heal themselves and heal others. It was wonderful to bring that element to Marvel, especially to be filming at really holy places like Boudhanath Stupa. 

Of course, the Emmy winner’s career has him constantly jet-setting to the most far-flung and fabulous destinations, but he still hasn’t lost that zest for diving headfirst into destinations around the globe, always jumping on the opportunity to widen his own travel horizons. 

Prayer flags at the Boudhanath Stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Pakin Songmor/Getty Images

After filming 2005’s To The Ends of the Earth, he set off on a solo adventure around South Africa and Namibia “partly because I’d had a bad experience with some fellow filmmakers and wanted to reclaim my fearlessness and sense of adventure, and partly because I was that far away from home and wanted to take the time to enjoy it.” The London-born actor called the trip “extraordinary,” remembering a lodge in Sossusvlei where he slept on the roof. “You’d be woken up by a moonrise among the red sand dunes that felt like Mars—it was unbelievable.”

Even as his own star rose, he continued his travel habit, tacking on exploration to his business trips, like in New Zealand, “a country I’m completely, utterly in love with.” His first introduction to the island nation was working with Peter Jackson on The Hobbit trilogy in Wellington, and he was thrilled to return for 2013’s “Star Trek Into Darkness,” especially when he finished his work in three days of the allotted two weeks. 

Instead of heading home, he was offered the chance to stay at writer-producer Philippa Boyens’ home and explore the South Island. “James McAvoy had sold it to me—he’s a very keen walker, and so am I,” he said of his fellow actor, who he’s worked with on “Starter for Ten” (2006) and “The Book of Clarence” (2024).

“It was like [the dramatic Wales mountain range] Brecon Beacons on steroids,” the two-time Oscar nominee said. “It’s just the mountains, the scale, the scope, the variety of landscape! From then on, I always wanted to go back.”

He got his wish when it came time to film 2021’s “The Power of the Dog,” which earned him his second Oscar nomination. Despite being set in Montana, the filmmakers discovered there was too much manmade interference and instead found a “beautiful undisturbed piece of nature” in the South Island’s Central Otago district, near Clyde and Alexandra.

With a brief hiatus between wrapping on location and restarting studio shoots in Auckland, Cumberbatch brought his family down for a vacation in early 2020. 

“We were just enjoying my parents, who were on the trip of a lifetime in their mid- and late-80s, and had this incredible road trip from Alexandra, all the way around Kaikōura,” he said, calling out Marlborough Sounds, Fox Glacier, Lake Wanaka, and Queenstown as highlights.

“We had our notifications turned off and just had the most amazing experience,” he said. “But as we were wrapping up and saying goodbye to mum and dad in Auckland, COVID hit.” Before he knew it, their direct flight home turned into three flights. Having purposefully built in downtime before his parents’ long-haul travels since his dad is a severe asthmatic, the family kept pushing back their return until “the three-week sojourn lasted for five months.”

Though he knows it was “not unique, because everyone had to change their holiday plans when a species-wide pandemic hit,” he’s grateful that it was the only true travel mishap he’s had to endure‚ other than occasional delayed luggage. “You end up in hot environments with my English and air-condition-ready clothes on, and it’s like, I’m not ready to be on a beach with my one pair of underpants,” he said. But he never lets those hiccups get in the way, simply picking up a new t-shirt and swimming trunks and proceeding with his plans.

He admitted that circumstances like that are a welcome reminder to pack light. “Less is always more—that should be the motto I have stamped on every suitcase so you’re not lugging half the kitchen sink with you,” he said. “Or ‘I should be half full’ on the inside because you might want to bring some wonderful things home and have the space for it.”

In fact, during Cumberbatch’s early travels, he packed everything he needed into a backpack. “You could get a secondhand book in some little youth hostel, you’d pick up a journal if yours got filled, and if you ran out of batteries, there’d be a shop,” he said. “Just trust the world has resources—maybe you don’t need to have that razor charger and can actually just be hairy for a bit. The freedom of less is extraordinary.”

He admitted he’s still working on packing light, often finding himself stuffing items into his “sponge bag” (Brit speak for toiletry kit) at 11 p.m. before a trip when he’s “too tired to really think. That’s when I fail as a traveler—and for the amount that I’ve done it, I still am pretty damn awful.”

While he’s still in the process of learning to lighten his load, the sustainability advocate does his best to stay mindful on and off the road. 

“I’m into the ship shower—you don’t need to run the water when you’re lathering soap,” The Green Rider campaign supporter said, emphasizing the importance of water conservation in hotels and making sure housekeeping isn’t changing your towels daily. He’s also an advocate for local travel and public transportation. “We’ve been doing more home-cations of late, and loving it,” he said, also flagging that for fellow Brits, there are greener ways to explore, like the Eurostar to Paris or the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) to Scotland.

That said, he’s also keenly aware of how tricky and delicate the realities are. “We’re in a system that immediately makes us hypocrites—if we speak out against what we feel is destroying our planet, we’re part of the system that destroys our planet,” he said. “Unless you sit still in a loincloth that you don’t wash, you can’t help but be contributing to it.” And that’s exactly why he said speaking up matters. “It’s about trying to pressure for change where it can happen and meeting people where they are in that conversation.”

The pool and exterior facade of Son Bunyola Hotel & Villas in Mallorca.

Virgin Limited Edition

For Cumberbatch, no matter where or how he travels, his passion for discovery always leads him to experiences he blesses with five stars, from stays at New York’s Greenwich Hotel, London’s Heckfield Place, and Mallorca’s Son Bunyola, to a stunning family getaway to Costa Rica’s Playa Hermosa. So it’s appropriate that he’s teamed up with Amazon for the holiday season, taking his award-winning flair for the dramatic to performing real five-star customer reviews—for everything from boyfriend pillows and bidets to sun hats and penguin pajamas—following in the footsteps of Adam Driver last year for the online retailer’s Five-Star Theater.

“There’s some very witty people out there,” he said, relishing the opportunity to interpret their work, including one particularly notable casket review, stating, “No complaints from grandpa.” He found its black humor similar to that in his upcoming film “The Thing with Feathers,” which also wrestles with those themes that “make you go on a weird journey” since “that’s what being a human is all about.”

A still of Benedict preforming Amazon’s Five Star Theater.

Amazon

And he’s thrilled that Amazon’s holiday season—including its Black Friday Week from Nov. 20-28, Cyber Monday event from Nov. 28-Dec. 1, and pop-up Today’s Big Deals—will offer savings across 36 categories, including travel essentials. “It’s a difficult time economically for a lot of people,” he said. “So these are genuinely helpful moments for people struggling.” 

After all, the most meaningful experiences don’t always come with the biggest price tag. As proof, Cumberbatch reaches back to his gap year before college, awarding the ultimate five-star travel experience to a small bedroom in the bottom of a home in Sonada, south of Darjeeling, India, that had been converted into a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, housing about 30 monks.

His review? “Basic, but profoundly spiritual. The most aesthetically and experientially five-star experience I’ve ever had.”