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My Hols: Alice Cooper

The hell-raiser tore up LA with Jim Morrison, but when school's out these days, he prefers the golf course or London's antiques markets

"I was born in Detroit and I always consider myself a city boy, but I had asthma so bad as a kid that my parents decided to move to Phoenix. My dad was a pastor and we made a lot of new friends through the church. One of our first holidays was a camping trip. We went to the Sequoia National Park and I just had the best time. I was one of those kids who could talk to anyone. Going on holiday with me was like going away with Ferris Bueller. Within a couple of days, I was running the campsite.

Most of the holidays from that period involved driving. My dad must have crisscrossed the country four or five times in our 1957 Ford Fairlane. When you're that age, a car window is like a real-life cinema screen. One day you see the Rockies and the next you see beautiful deserts or incredible lakes.

To this day, driving is my favourite way to see the world. When the kids were younger, I would say, "Let's go to New York for a few days," and we'd drive all the way there. Five days straight.

After I joined my first band at 16, me and the guys started doing road trips. I remember landing in LA in the late-1960s and you just knew things were happening in that city. Jim Morrison and the Doors kind of took us in. Can you imagine that? I'm a teenage punk from Phoenix and I'm having a beer with Jim Morrison.

It wasn't always quite so glamorous. One Christmas Day, me and a couple of my buddies got stranded in a Motel 6 on some deserted highway. We decorated a piece of tumbleweed for a Christmas tree. Man, I look back now and think what a great time we had on those trips.

In the 1970s, we started to have a bit of success in England — School's Out went to No 1 in 1972 — which meant I finally got to see London. To me, London was like Disneyland: the land of dreams and fairy tales. I loved all those British bands like the Stones, the Kinks, and the Beatles, and when I walked down Carnaby Street, I couldn't believe I was walking on the same pavement that Paul McCartney might have walked on. I still feel very at home in London and I love the antiques markets. Apart from golf, that's my favourite holiday pastime.

I married Sheryl in 1976. We spent ages worrying where to go on honeymoon and then decided to wait till I was on tour. We actually went around the world twice, seeing places from Copenhagen and the Alps to Australia. There are some places that have stayed with me for almost 40 years, usually those that, as a kid, I never thought I'd get to see. Like Hawaii. In my imagination, Hawaii only existed on TV and on postcards. And there it was. Jamaica was the same. If you could make up a holiday island, it would probably be somewhere between Hawaii and Jamaica.

Or Maui: whenever me and Sheryl are planning a trip, we look at all these places around the world and then say, "Ah, c'mon, let's go back to Maui," because that island is a little piece of heaven right here on earth. We've got a holiday home there and it's also blessed with some amazing golf courses. I don't suppose there's any way I can talk about travelling without talking about golf. No matter where I am, I will find a golf course. Some people like their sand on the beach, but I prefer mine in bunkers."

Alice Cooper, 67, was born Vincent Furnier in Detroit, Michigan. He joined his first 50 years ago and went on to sell tens of millions of albums in the 1970s and 1980s. His latest album and DVD, Raise the Dead: LIve from Wacken, is out now. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife, Sheryl. They have three children, Calico, 34; Dash, 29; and Sonora Rose, 23.