The Emmy award-winning comedian shares his love of travel, most clever travel tips, and packing must-haves.
Emmy laurels - get ahead comedian , histrion , and author Keegan - Michael Key first made waves in the amusement industriousness as a casting member onMad TVin 2004 . It ’s also where he finally met Jordan Peele , Centennial State - creator of the wildly pop sketch drollery seriesKey and Peele , which aired from 2012 to 2015 . Key has since star in several television display and movies include Netflix original seriesFriends from Collegeand buddy comedyKeanu . He ’s also bring his voice to several smash hit animated films such asThe Lego Movie , Hotel Transylvania , andThe Super Mario Bros. Movie .
Most latterly , Key partner with Choice Hotels for its former marketing campaign , Check Into More . As the campaign’sVacation Maximization - er , Key habituate his comedic wit to help traveler craft out - of - office replies and creative time - off requests .
Key talked to associate editor Annie Harrigan about his favorite travel memory , his backpacking habits , and the weirdest thing he ’s ever brought through airport security .
Keegan-Michael Key|Noam Galai / Stringer / Getty Images
Annie Harrigan :
What is your relationship with travel ?
Keegan - Michael Key : I am a bountiful , big traveling proponent . I really lie with to travel and I think the great unwashed need to travel as soon as possible . In the times that we ’re living in right now , in the economy that we ’re endure in in good order now , I think if you ’re go away to spend your money , spend your money on an experience is a really impertinent matter to do . An experience is something that you ’ll keep with you forever . It has a priceless quality to it as opposed to simply consuming things . To have an experience with loved 1 , with people that you enjoy , and to give yourself a new perspective on the humankind , that , to me , is priceless .
AH : What ’s your favorite travel retentiveness ?
KMK : My favorite travel memory is my first large trip . My high shoal graduation gift from my pop and my stepmother was a trip to the United Kingdom . I grew up in Detroit , which is very cheeseparing to Canada . The cheap way to get to the U.K. was to somehow dodge Detroit and Toronto and flee from Hamilton , Canada . So , I flew from Hamilton to the U.K. and I can remember — and this was almost 40 years ago — the excitement I felt . I remember all of the excitation as if it just happened .
AH : Window , middle , or aisle seat ?
KMK : I am an aisle seat person because I have long legs . Three twenty-five percent of my soundbox is leg , so I need to cheat a little mo . I like to get my leg just outside the aisle . And then if someone ’s walking by , I ’ll move it , but it gives me the illusion that I have a little more spare space .
AH : What ’s your favourite agency to pass time on a planing machine ?
KMK : I’m a reader , I have it off to read , but I ’m also a cinephile . I really love film . The well thing about a plane is , because you paid for the flying , the movies feel free . So I can watch a picture show that I would n’t necessarily give to see in theaters . Sometimes when I ’m on a sheet , I get a little adventurous and I ’ll follow that strange little indie picture or that foreign movie that I never got around to construe . There ’s nowhere to go so I may as well watch that movie now .
My other favorite part of that enclosed feeling of dedicated time is that it allows me to get into the current of a book . Sometimes , when you record a record , peculiarly fable , you have to get into it for the first 80 pages — figure out the author ’s style , and all that jazz . I like to take the opportunity to do that often on a planing machine .
The last book I take on a plane was a book from 2000 calledThe Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clayby Michael Chabon . fantastical Koran .
AH : Do you mob light or overpack ?
KMK : I’m a light packer . I do this weird thing when I compact , I pretend I ’m a Navy SEAL cash in one’s chips on a missionary post and I only want a few items . I do n’t eff why I do it . My wife overpacks . Well , I imagine she overpacks , but then we get to our terminus , and who ’s asking who if they have dental floss ? Who ’s asking who if they have a jacket ? Sheepishly , I ’ll be like , “ You would n’t have brought me a parka , did you ? ” And she whips it out and she ’s like , “ Yes , I did . I packed an supernumerary crownwork for you . ”
AH : What is something that you dead need with you when you travel ?
KMK : This is going to sound strange but I have to have electrical tape . As I ’ve gotten older , when I sleep , I need it to be as sorry as possible . What ’s great about hotels these twenty-four hour period is that many more are put in blackout shade . But if you recover yourself in a room where that ’s not the case , you have to have an eye mask . And If I were to bury the eye masquerade party , I ca n’t find it , or I do n’t eff which grip it ’s in , I need electric tape . I put it over any lights . So the red illumination that ’s on the bottom of the TV ? Got to cover that igniter . The dark-green visible light that ’s on the sess detector ? stupefy to embrace that one too . Sometimes we ’ve used whole landing strip of tape to make a amnesia mantle . If there ’s one little sliver of sparkle , we put the tape where it is .
The other matter I always have to bring is my own flat solid . Because you palpate comfortable on the ribbon reckoning of your sheets and you ’ve wash them to a certain eubstance . It is a thing that I think makes your experience more comfortable at the end of every day when you ’re lay down to go to log Z’s . If you have your own rag , there ’s a feeling of comfortability , conversancy .
AH : What ’s your go - to travel bite ?
KMK : I’ll wassail a cup of blistering disastrous tea leaf . If they have honey , I ’ll take the honey . Sometimes the flight accompaniment will have footling Heinz honey packets , which is awesome . Flight attendants are awe-inspiring . I love flight attendants . And I sleep together a Biscoff cookie , the ones they attend to on Delta flights . Those are the good . And I love to dim them in my tea .
AH : What ’s your plane wardrobe ?
KMK : Athleisure . A lax T - shirt , athleisure pant , lawn tennis shoes , and a hoodie . Usually a nada - up hoodie , not a pullover . It needs to be a zip - up hoodie and not a pullover because when you ’re sitting , especially if you ’re in a low seat , you have to address with the whole force it over your head , and then your stomach is usher and then you ’re elbowing someone in the cheek . So a postal code - up hoodie always .
AH : What ’s the eldritch matter you ’ve endeavor to bring through airport security ?
KMK : I like I could say it was some character of food . I do n’t require to be the person who enunciate “ I do n’t know , an Emmy . ” Because that ’s what everybody does when they gain awarding . You forget that so many people do n’t live where the award was given out .
And it ’s a whole affair when you fetch an Emmy to the citizenry at the TSA x - shaft of light . They look at the machine . They see up at you . And then they go , “ praise . ” Because they can see the awarding . I ca n’t even imagine what it ’d be like for a person who ’s won an Oscar . The TSA staff would go , “ Oh my God , that ’s an Oscar . ” But for me , the weirdest thing I ’ve bring through has been the Emmy .
