Dom Joly: My favourite city? Somewhere with fried cheese and chips

I'm in San Francisco at the start of a curious nine-day road trip down to LA – playing the finest golf courses in California along the way. I adore San Francisco. It's possibly my favourite city in the world – stunning-looking, wonderful standard of living and the location of so many of my favourite Hitchcock movies.

I aired my views at dinner with my fellow road-trippers, and this started a long discussion as to whether it beat Sydney or not. I lead an impassioned defence of San Fran, pouring scorn on Sydney and all it stands for. I suppose, really, I should go there first before dismissing her charms, but I've never let facts or actual knowledge get in the way of an impassioned argument – that would be silly. Playing the "what's your favourite city?" game is a source of endless delight to me, but I doubt that it will ever be resolved.

If I'm showing off, then I'll say somewhere like Damascus, which is an amazingly beautiful city, full of life and things to see. Also most people haven't been there, so it's easier to argue the case. It's a wonderful place and well worth visiting, but this has probably got a lot to do with the frisson of being a tourist in the "axis of evil". I don't think I'd want to live there unless things go very badly in the TV world and I decide to retrain as a terrorist.

Hanoi is another contender, if I'm trying to impress. Someone once described it as "the south-east Asian city I'd always been looking for", but I think I know what they were saying. It's an urban assault on the senses – gorgeous old colonial architecture peppered among the honeycomb-like bustling streets which are filled with wonderful smells and sounds. And the food – a city is so linked to her food. That's why San Francisco does so well – unlike Prague, another worthy contender.

I lived there for a year just after the Velvet Revolution. It's a breathtakingly beautiful place and I adored it. Czech cuisine, however, is not the finest – although I still have a hankering for the local speciality of fried cheese and chips. More importantly, it has become something of a beer-monster destination – the curse of easyJet – and the once bohemian atmosphere has been replaced by the sound of public chundering in the cobbled streets.

Fez, in Morocco, has to be on my list as it's a remarkable destination. Sadly, I once got totally conned by a tag-team hustle there. A man came up to my then girlfriend in the souk and spat in her face. Just as I was wondering what to do, a saviour came from nowhere and gave the spitter a couple of hefty slaps and sent him on his way. He was so embarrassed at this slight to his city that he insisted on showing us around all day for free – well, not free, as he charged me $50 at the end and I could hardly say no, could I? I spotted them both having a coffee together, and laughing, later that evening. What a mug, but what a con! I could never live there after that – I'd constantly feel that everyone would be laughing at me.

Cape Town is a staggering-looking city – nothing quite beats looking down on it from atop Table Mountain. Sadly, once you dig a little deeper, there's not much soul to the place. Also, everyone seems to surround themselves with barbed wire and "armed response protected" signs and you're constantly warned of the dangers of driving, as you could be attacked by baboons. I was excited when a large baboon did go for my rental car but the novelty might soon fade.

Vancouver might be a strong contender, but I haven't been there. When some music paper took a poll of touring rock bands as to their favourite destination, it came out top of the pops. This is high praise indeed, as most tour destinations tend to be a blur of hotel/venue/tour bus. I love the sound of the place – beaches, skiing, police on mountain bikes, lobster ... it sounds like San Francisco, with the added attraction of not being about to be thrown into the sea by a huge earthquake. Vancouver it is, then. Or maybe Swindon.