‘I Look Like Hannibal Lecter’

Sophie Turner’s breakout role as Sansa Stark on the hit fantasy series Game of Thrones made the British actress a household name. And while the HBO show is still binge-worthy years after its finale, Turner is watching something a little lighter when she’s in flight. “If I’m not sleeping, any Real Housewives—I’m binging the whole way. You have to watch it!” she said, listing the Salt Lake City franchise as her favorite, though she’s also partial to Potomac and Beverly Hills. Turner sat down with Travel + Leisure to talk about her other travel essentials (beyond the Real Housewives), her jet lag hacks, and her favorite filming location.

Though the Emmy-winning Game of Thrones ended in 2019 after eight globe-trotting seasons, Turner’s love of shooting in beautiful, far-flung locations has endured. She has gone on to star in many films, including “X-Men: Dark Phoenix” (2019) and “The Dreadful” (2024), requiring her to travel all over the world. For Turner, one location still stands out: Iceland (one of many notable Game of Thrones filming locations). “I just found Iceland absolutely astonishingly beautiful, like the landscape with northern lights. It’s also that I shot there in the summer when there’s something like 22 hours of light, and it was a very bizarre experience. It was just beautiful.” As for other dream filming locations, she would love to work on something in Norway. “I’ve never been to Norway, and I would just love to go there. I just think it looks beautiful.”

So, how does she survive an intense travel schedule often packed with long flights? Her moisturizer (“my Weleda Skin Food”) and a dip in the closest body of water, she told T+L. “Whether it’s a bath, a pool, an ice bath, whatever it may be. I think it just calms my system down. It also really helps me with jet lag as well. I’m a Pisces, so I just need to be in water. It’s like a rejuvenation. It feeds my soul.” For hotel pools, she recommends the Corinthia Hotel in London, but she also loves swimming out in the open, like when she went to Egypt last year and hopped into her new favorite body of water. “We were on the River Nile, and we all jumped off the boat [into the river], and I think that was probably my favorite.”

Another travel must for Turner? Immediately ordering room service when she checks into her hotel room. “Listen, my go-to order will always be spaghetti with butter and cheese. Kids food, man, it’s the best!” the mother of two said with a laugh. Though she orders off the children’s menu, she does the very adult thing of immediately unpacking after her room service meal—both routines help with a sense of normalcy. 

Her final travel staple? A Hugo spritz. “It absolutely is the spirit of travel,” Turner said. She is such a fan of the cocktail that she has partnered with St-Germain for the second year in a row on a new campaign called “Sip Into Something Fresher.”  “I can have it anywhere, any time of day. It could be morning, evening, whatever. There’s no bounds on where I drink it,” she said, noting she would love airlines to start making this drink part of their cocktail programs.

The campaign touts the St-Germain Hugo spritz as the official cocktail of summer, and the brand will have activations in St. Tropez and Cannes. The South of France holds a special place in Turner’s heart. “I’ve spent a lot of time there. Actually, I got married there [to ex-husband Joe Jonas]. I’ve got a lot of great memories there, and I really love it. I love the landscape, I love the people, I love the food, I love the drink. I just think it’s such a romantic, beautiful, idyllic place.”