How I Travel: Jennette McCurdy Loves This LAX Bookstore

Jennette McCurdy just got back from Vietnam, and she’s obsessed. “Would you say Hội An is underrated? Because I hadn’t really heard too many people rave about it and I was shocked, but maybe I just don’t know the right people,” says the bestselling author of the memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died and former child actor. “I think it’s a must-see place, and I couldn’t recommend it more—for the food, the people, the experiences.”

The dreamy town in central Vietnam came up several times during McCurdy’s chat with Conde Nast Traveler, as did her need for a great hotel view and her evolving relationship with New York City, where she’s excited to spend time on her book tour. Her second book, Half His Age, is not nonfiction but a novel. Out this week, it’s the darkly funny story of a teenage girl’s infatuation with her creative writing teacher. Ahead, McCurdy shares how the novel’s idea arrived while she was on a trip to Japan, and how flying business class has returned to her life.

Why she doesn’t write on planes
I think there’s nothing more cringey than whipping open the laptop to a Microsoft Word document. I would feel too embarrassed to do that. But whenever I travel, I wind up writing something. With Half His Age, I wrote that primarily at home in Los Angeles, but I also wrote it in Carlsbad, in San Diego, in New York City, in Chicago, in San Jose, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Mexico. I wrote it everywhere. I do need quiet, but location doesn’t particularly matter. I was in Mexico for a wedding and everybody was hanging out at the pool party, but I was in the room with the doors shut writing Half His Age. I did hear a little Katy Perry bleeding through at one point.

Her most recent amazing trip
I just got back from Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Cambodia. The food in Vietnam was amazing. I had so much good pho. The people could not have been kinder. I went with my significant other and at one point he joked, “Okay, I’m ready to get back to the assholes of L.A.” Something about being around people that were so kind, it really led to a perspective shift. In Vietnam, we went to Hanoi and then Hội An, and I fell in love with Hội An. It was beautiful and so charming. That was my favorite spot. The coconut coffee was amazing.

Her favorite mode of transportation
I once got horribly seasick on a boat leading from a cruise ship to Capri, and I get a bit of anxiety with flying. But trains, that’s my love. I enjoy them so much. When I was 24, I was on a solo trip in Japan, and funnily enough, it was on a bullet train that I had the initial idea for Half His Age. I suspect it happened because I was in such a relaxed, pleasant state that the creativity just came in.

Her airport routine
I don’t like to get there with too much time, but I definitely don’t like to be rushing. I once missed a flight to Nashville when I was like 18 and haven’t missed a flight since. I hope to keep my record strong. There’s a bookshop in the Tom Bradley International Terminal [at LAX] called Book Soup that I always stop by. I don’t usually need to stop in the convenience store because I have a travel checklist in my phone, and I check that obsessively. I also keep a carry-on backpack ready to go with all my toiletries. On that checklist, I mark anything that runs out that I might need to pick up on back at home, so I have that always ready to go.