“I don’t really have a standard New Year’s Eve thing, but this year my boyfriend, McG, and I got in a little bit of ski and sun. We spent a couple days on the slopes in Mammoth, California, then flew to Anguilla. We stayed at the Viceroy hotel there, which is unbelievably chic, but I’m not somebody who can just lie in the sun all day—in fact, I didn’t do that once. I was always trying to do something. We played tennis every single day and golfed next door at Temenos Golf Course.

“That was my first time playing since I had a kid, so I was a little rusty, but I’m not a stressed-out golfer. If my drive goes wild, I don’t mind teeing up another one. There were rain showers and rainbows and wild dogs running on the course. We didn’t take it that seriously.

“For dinner, we went to Trattoria Tramonto, this little Italian restaurant right on the beach that has been there forever. It’s a romantic, unassuming spot, and it was just wonderful to be on the ocean. It couldn’t have been more perfect.

“I’m not sure where we’ll go next year, but I got a really sexy pair of skis for Christmas…”

“When I was a young buck growing up in the north of England, I never traveled, but I read National Geographic cover to cover. I was fascinated by exploration, but I never expected I would do it. Suddenly, just as Python had, like the parrot, completely deceased, out of the blue comes an offer to host this BBC series, Around the World in 80 Days.

“I see a lot more of the world now, and both poles. I climbed a little way up Everest, and I stayed in pretty grim guesthouses along the way, but through a cracked pane I could see the tip of the mountain. I got a flavor of what it must have been like for Mallory and Hillary.

“As far as cities go, I like ones that have slightly more bustle, like Cairo and Istanbul. Paris is my favorite. I always stay at a little place on the south bank called d’Aubusson. It’s got a very old feel, like me. And there always seems to be jazz piping in from somewhere. I like that.”

Palin’s Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 is out on March 1.

“Very rarely do I venture from the norm, which is traveling to Lake Starnberg in Bavaria, Germany, where King Ludwig II vacationed. When I’m there, I stay with a friend, and we just stay in. But when I take a vacation, I like to go to St. Petersburg in Russia. When we’re there, we see the history—the Palace Square, the cathedrals, the Hermitage. It’s just a wonderful city.

“Another place that I would love to go, which I’ve only been to once, is the Hotel La Place in Antibes, on the French Riviera. I went there for the first time this summer, and the view from the veranda is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“For my daughter’s eighteenth birthday last summer we went to Amsterdam. Billie had flown over with her boyfriend, Max, and rented an apartment. We stayed at the Hotel Pulitzer, which was very quaint and right around the corner from where the kids were. They had no air conditioning in the apartment, so they were always in our room.

“I’m a straight-up tourist when I travel. I always hire whatever goofy cars you can ride around in. In Amsterdam, we took horse-and-buggy rides through the city. The kids borrowed bicycles. We rented wooden canal boats to tour the canals. In the boats, after we toured around, they set out tablecloths and food and champagne and we had a picnic. We were there in the height of summer, which is when you’d think it would be crazy there—but it was very mellow. It’s a very friendly city. I don’t think you can really be overwhelmed by Amsterdam.”

Fisher’s one-woman show, Wishful Drinking, will air on HBO this month.

“Like most people, I have my little rituals and places I travel to again and again. I’m Austrian, so of course in the winter I have to go skiing. There’s a Ritz-Carlton near Vail called Bachelor Gulch that I really love. It’s ski-in, ski-out, which is great for our boys, Oliver and Alexander. We’ll ski in the morning and then stop for a long lunch at the hotel, perhaps a good pasta with white truffles. I’m picky about my skiing—I like it when there’s real powder, when there are no tracks in the snow but yours.

“One place I haven’t been and that we’re visiting this winter is Ethiopia. My wife, Gelila, was born there, and we’re going because she runs a sponsorship program through a charity called the Ethiopian Children’s Fund. I adore Ethiopian food. It’s everything from goulash to lentils to cabbage and different types of potatoes, and I’m excited to see how they do it at its most traditional. It’s such an ancient civilization.”

Wolfgang Puck will be in Ethiopia this month for the groundbreaking of The Gelila Assefa Puck Skill Training Center, a project his wife is helming.

“When I travel for a marathon, I stay close to my hotel to save my strength for the race. But I always make time to go to Central Park-it’s so beautiful with the trees and gardens. It’s wonderful to have that kind of place in the middle of such a big city. Of course, those beautiful hills are quite difficult at the end of the race, but by then I know I’m almost finished.

“For a little more action, I go to Times Square. I like to stop by all those little souvenir shops where there are so many symbols of the United States, like the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. I always pick up some shirts and caps for my wife and kids-I can’t go home empty-handed!”

Haile Gebrselassie is running the ING New York City Marathon on November 7.

“I’ve been going to St. Tropez almost every summer for twelve years, and I love it. I just got back, and it was sad to leave. This time around, I stayed at Villa Belrose, which has a fancy, Michelin-starred restaurant and this amazing selection of cheeses. But I think La Bastide is the most beautiful hotel. It’s more country and quiet.

“As a food person, I like to go to little hole-in- the-wall French restaurants. The fruits and vegetables taste totally different there because they’re all vine- ripened. All of the cafés make wonderful fried zucchini blossoms, and you always drink rosé, even in the evening.

“Overall, St. Tropez has magnificent food, spectacular scenery, incredible shopping. It’s a vacation of ease and rejuvenation, from the beach clubs to the restaurants and even the drive into the village. It’s a really special place.”

Sandra Lee’s Best of Semi- Homemade cookbook comes out this month.

“Berlin is a very exciting city that doesn’t wear its excitement on its sleeve. It’s got so much going on artistically and culturally, but, at the same time, it’s very intimate. The streets are lovely and quiet. The city’s infrastructure was built for many more people than the number living there, so people congregate. And the local chefs are doing a lot to reinvent German food. One of my favorite places to eat is Renger-Patzsch, a German restaurant that uses some modern techniques. It’s a very casual place with really top-notch cuisine, and that attitude for me represents Berlin as a whole.

“For outdoors people, it’s just a short drive to the rural countryside in East Germany and only a little longer to Poland. I’m a birdwatcher, and I’ve had great sightings of cranes, which nest on these old farmhouses. There are lots of small birds you can’t see elsewhere, and it’s eagle country, too. It’s amazing to leave a very modern city like Berlin, drive a short way and feel like you’re in the 1800s.”

Jonathan Franzen’s long-awaited new book, Freedom: A Novel, is in stores now.

“I was in Petra about three years ago performing for King Abdullah II at the Petra Conference of Nobel Laureates. I performed inside the city of ruins, which is probably about twenty centuries old, so that was really amazing. You can ride camels down into it to explore and learn about the place. After the concert, I got the opportunity to meet the king. He was really nice! I stayed at the Mövenpick Resort, which has all this beautiful, traditional decor. There were also about thirty Nobel laureates staying there for the conference, so I would just go eat in the hotel’s restaurants with all these brilliant people. It was definitely a memorable experience.

“I also really like traveling to Taipei. I’ve been a lot, most recently about a year ago. We went to Five Dime Restaurant, which feels like you’re inside the trunk of a tree. The food was really good—all the food there is really good. One of my favorite things to do is go to the night markets. Everything’s really cheap. I get a lot of my clothes there.”

Sirena Huang will be performing with the Waterbury Symphony Orchestra in Waterbury, Connecticut, in October.

“My mom’s side of the family is in Chicago, so when I was growing up, we would visit two or three times a year. We didn’t do the fancy foodie thing, but we had some little rituals. We always went to Pizzeria Uno or Pizzeria Due right across the street, and both of them are fantastic. It’s the best pizza in the world. I also loved going to the Shedd Aquarium and The Art Institute of Chicago. We’d always look at very specific paintings, like Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks or Grant Wood’s American Gothic.

“I went back to Chicago a few months ago with my husband [Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen] and a friend. It was so funny going to the Art Institute and looking at those same paintings. I almost feel like I own them or something, because I grew up looking at them. This time around, we stayed at The Ritz-Carlton, which is actually a Four Seasons hotel right off the Magnificent Mile. We had a great view of Lake Michigan, and it was so amazing we barely wanted to leave the hotel. But my friend and I fell in love with this shop in Wicker Park called Penelope’s. It’s the most adorable place in the whole world. They have everything you could possibly want. I can’t wait to go back.”

Elisabeth Moss will be returning to TV as Peggy Olson in AMC’s Mad Men on July 25.

“Goa is one of my favorite places to visit. Part of it is still frozen in the sixties, so it’s the hippies and the clubs and the Beatles playing, which is what I grew up with. It’s also very historical. Vasco da Gama went there on a Portuguese expedition in 1498, and the body of St. Francis Xavier was entombed there. So it’s this very surreal mix of time periods, cultures and religions, accented by the fragrance of the atmosphere. It just feels very exotic.

“Whenever I go, I stay at the Taj Fort Aguada Beach Resort. It’s a beautiful five-star hotel that they update every few years. I love it for its majesty. It also serves the best Goa fish curry, which is the local delicacy. If you drive along the shore, you can find all kinds of little stands serving the same dish, but I find the Taj’s to be the best.”

Hear Deepak Chopra narrate his books The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and Creating Your World the Way You Really Want It to Be, among others, as part of June is Audiobook Month at www.audiobookcommunity.com.

“Many cities are my favorites for different reasons, but Tokyo is at the top of the list. I find it extraordinary how behind the front row of skyscrapers and office buildings, you make two turns and feel like you’re in a very small Japanese village. I’ve actually been there thirteen times since 1986. In terms of food, I love exploring the various small restaurants in Ginza. They don’t have a menu, so you just get the dinner of the evening. To me, not having to choose is the ultimate in luxury.

“I also did one of my favorite shoots in Tokyo at the National Museum of Western Art, which I think has the most exquisitely installed objects of art of any museum I’ve ever been to. When I heard the museum was exhibiting the painting by the French artist Delacroix, La Liberté, I delayed my flight out of Tokyo and faxed the Louvre for permission to shoot it—it’s their painting. It turned out to be well worth the trouble. The gallery was filled up like a movie theater for this one painting, and the photo was like a film still from a dream.”

Struth’s work is on display at New York’s Marian Goodman Gallery from May 5 to June 19.

“I’ve always had a strong connection to New York because back in the sixties, when I started out, it was the only place a woman could make a living as a dancer. I recently visited the Cloisters, and I go to the museums as often as possible—from the Morgan Library to the Frick Collection, the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, the Whitney… They’re all pretty spectacular.

“City Center is probably my favorite performance space. One of the first pieces I choreographed, Deuce Coupe, showed there, so I’m sentimental about it. The whole experience was very exciting, and it is a nice theater. I also love the Delacorte in Central Park. It’s free, which I think is important, because it means more people can see the shows, and it’s wonderful to be outside.

“I don’t go out to eat much, but I celebrated my birthday last year at Ouest, and it was great. The dessert was so good that I actually ate dessert!”

Come Fly Away, a musical set to the songs of Frank Sinatra and directed and choreographed by Twyla Tharp, makes its Broadway debut on March 25.

“I HAVE MANY beautiful memories of my summer holidays in the Greek Islands. In August, the sky is full of stars. I remember gazing up at them, thinking about how human beings, even with all the great accomplishments we can achieve, are so small in comparison to the vast universe out there. It’s very emotional.

“I love to switch off all my phones and relax with family and close friends on my boat, in the middle of the Mediterranean. If I’m not cooking my favorite risotto for dinner on board, my favorite place to dock is Mykonos, where I like to eat at Nammos on Psarou Beach.

“I also love to be at home in Italy and go to Just Cavalli Café. I personally chose the menu, so naturally I’m a fan.”

Roberto Cavalli’s women’s line, which showed last month in Milan, will be available in stores this summer.

“WHEN I WAS RACING WITH FORMULA ONE, one of my favorite cities was Singapore. The weather there is really nice and the shopping is great, but if I really wanted to relax I would go to Phuket, in Thailand. There’s a hotel there called the Amanpuri, and my family and I would rent a private villa there right on the beach. Oh my God, it is stupid nice.

“I used to live in Monaco, and I would have to fly twenty-eight or thirty hours to a race. Now that I’m with Nascar and I live in Miami, the flights are nice and short. So even though my racing season runs from February to November, I can actually travel more for fun.

“We went to Aruba this year. It’s very American now, but it’s still a great place to spend a week, and for kids it’s good because you have both a McDonald’s and lots of really upscale restaurants. Also the windsurfing is great. I love windsurfing, but even in Miami, where I live, the water is too cold for me.”

Juan Pablo Montoya races the No. 42 Target Chevy in the Nascar Sprint Cup Series.

“IN BEIJING, I usually stay at the Shangri-La. It’s really beautiful and quite big, and it has a great gym and a wonderful restaurant. You know, Chinese food is a little…different. Once, at another place, I ate a snake! It wasn’t exactly what I’m used to. Very chewy, but interesting.

“I try to visit Beijing at least once a year—and I went for the Olympics last year. At this point, I’ve seen all the attractions including the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Now I mostly shop when I’m there. You can get everything: fashion, beautiful silks, electronics. The markets are just amazing.”

Jelena Jankovic is playing in the Australian Open Tennis Championships, January 18–31 in Melbourne.

“I’VE TRAVELED TO so many different countries promoting my books, but the place I’ve felt most at home is America, and my favorite city there is Boston. It’s a very English city, and that’s such a funny thing to say, because we don’t travel to other places to find more Englishness! But there’s so much history there, and I loved the architecture. There’s something very special about Boston. It combines all the activity of a big city with a kind of intellectual peace.

“I was there for three months teaching creative writing at Boston University. I really enjoyed the historic sites such as the Paul Revere House and the State Capitol. It’s a very walkable city. I remember going across the bridge to Harvard University, which is a very attractive campus. And we went down to Cape Cod and visited Nantucket, where the houses have widow’s walks around them. It’s just lovely.”

P.D. James’ latest book, Talking About Detective Fiction, will be released this month.

“I GO ON VACATION TO RELAX. I don’t go to hang out or party. I love Cabo San Lucas because the weather is beautiful all the time. Everything there is just gorgeous. And the ocean’s very loud, which is actually very soothing. We stayed at the Esperanza Cabo Resort. It was nice because they have private pools in the rooms, so there was plenty of privacy. Last time I was there, I’d just come off the Breakthrough tour, and I went with friends, just to relax with people I care about.

“I was in Portofino, Italy, in August. It’s probably one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my life. There was this beautiful mist everywhere. And I loved how the poor people mixed with the rich people-there was no separation. It’s not like anything I’ve seen. I was on a boat, and we were there for just three days, so I mostly just walked around to see the sites, and I relaxed. I’d love to go back to both places, but I’m not going on vacation anytime soon-too much work to do.”

“I’M NOT GOOD AT SIMPLY GOING ON HOLIDAY. I don’t enjoy being told what I’m looking at by a guide, however well-intentioned, and I can’t just stand and look at the beach. I have to be part of the landscape. I have to be engaged. I’ve done three films in Prague, and I find it very sustaining. It’s not like New York or L.A.—there’s so much history. The first time I went, it was to visit a friend who was working on a movie. I went for a long weekend and stayed right on the Vltava River. We were pretty high up, and I remember looking out over all those copper roofs that have turned green. A few years later, I went back to do a miniseries about Anne Frank. It was really something to come off the set and find myself still surrounded by all that history. My most recent holiday there was with my darling wife for New Year’s Eve, which is also my birthday, and we watched the fireworks over the Vltava.

“There’s a restaurant called the Alchymist that I always go to. Even if it’s been three or four years since my last visit, they’re very welcoming. I love Czech food, and the service is lovely. It’s a beautiful place in a wizardy way. I also really like U Patrona, near the Charles Bridge. You must go in the fall so you can walk across the Charles very slowly; in summer, it’s too crowded.”

BEN KINGSLEY stars in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming thriller, Shutter Island.

“WE REALLY LIKE GOING down to Mexico, the Caribbean side. My husband, Jerry O’Connell, and I have gone to Playa del Carmen four or five times. It’s magical. We love the Latin culture. I don’t want to reveal the place we stay, because it’s so tiny and private, and I don’t want it to become overrun. The first time, we went for three days, and we just totally fell for it.

“Now we have six-month-old twins, Dolly Rebecca Rose and Charlie Tamara Tulip, so travel is tough. I have a lot of family in Holland, so we’d love to take them there soon, but it’s basically just been road trips since they were born. We’ve taken them on one plane ride so far. Hopefully they’ll be old enough to hang out on the beach in Mexico soon.”

REBECCA ROMIJN stars in Eastwick, premiering this month on ABC.