Travelling to other areas for trick or treating

My mum is 80. Any occasion to make money was taken by her and her siblings growing up. On bonfire night they would split up and have a ‘penny for the guy’ on each end of the street, to make sure they made maximum money. That’s more like begging!

im nearly 50 and certainly went trick or treating. It absolutely isnt new to England.

I also find all these begging comments really funny 😂. They're so illogical.

If I invite my friend in for a cup of tea and a biscuit, is she begging?

A convention has developed whereby displaying a pumpkin on 31st October is an invitation to children passing by in costumes to knock on the door for a treat. By knocking, children accept that invitation. They are invited and they accept. I don't see how that can be seen as begging in any form.

I live in a target village, I don't mind, happy to give sweets away.

The time. 5pm until 8pm. Then no more. And we do get lots of teens all dressed up too.

I think it's fine to travel to meet up with family and friends. I don't really have a problem with people going to an area they have no connection with if otherwise their kids wouldn't really get to trick or treat, but I do think it is a little sad not to live in an area where at least a few people make a bit of an effort.

I do think that if you're trick or treating yourself, you should leave sweets out/another adult at home to hand them out if possible. So if you're going to participate, give as well as take. But I guess for families in flats or who live in the middle of nowhere with no one passing, that might be a bit pointless and they might just end up with a whole bowl of sweets left.

Our first year in our new home we had close to 200 trick or treaters! I think that year lot some of our neighbours off as not many do it now. Most years we have 100ish, think last year we reckon it was 130.

It's absolutely normal. Just because you don't do it doesn't mean it's not normal. I know many people who do it and have done for years.

Nope I've never heard this. Not everybody lives in an estate. We live in a quiet area. I always have loads of sweets ready and nobody ever comes.

Obviously we only go to houses that are decorated and advertising themselves.

Why would you feel cheeky? I really don't get it. Halloween is for everyone. Party mix bags cost very little.

😂😂😂

When I lived in London, our house was known as the 'Halloween House' because I used to really go to town decorating. We used to get 200 or so kids each year, lots came from other areas but I was just happy to be part of it all (this was pre-DC). I love Halloween!

Now that DS is old enough, he has a Halloween party every year and then we take him trick or treating round our village, but if we lived somewhere crap for it I'd have no problem going somewhere else.

A few bags of lollies cost very little, and it brings such joy to the kids.

encouraging children that it's OK to beg is pretty CF behaviour generally, wherever they do it.

No not normal and very cheeky!

I think it should be houses within walking distance only. Unless travelling to trick or treat with friends/family

Thank goodness for people like you, the misery guts on here are dreadful, I bet they'll sit in tomorrow sucking on their lemons. Keep enjoying Halloween and making great memories for the children.

Some people come to our estate as several streets out in a real effort. The funny thing was that they would come from the estate where I teach. That gave them a shock when I opened the door!

I admit we’ll be travelling to our BIL/SIL street tomorrow to trick or treat. We live on a semi-rural road where the average age is about 70. No one puts pumpkins or decorations out so we presume they’re not going to answer/appreciate us knocking so we’ll nip over to SIL/BIL street/estate where loads of houses will be decorated and accepting trick or treaters and do a couple of houses there instead so that my kids get to experience it.

When we bought this house we didn’t consider our children not being able to go trick or treating!!!

I was upset last year as I heard someone kicking my bowl down the street.

I'm widowed and live alone in my bungalow, I did have my beloved dog who went barking mad at the front door but he died in October 2022. I've always put my pumpkin out along with the bowl of sweets. I also do a bucket of dog biscuits, I'm on a dog walking route. If it happens again this year I'll not do it again.

I live near a village thats full of Americans as well as locals. Halloween is huge there. The decorations have been up since end of September. Few years ago i heard of people from nearby cities, towns and villages driving there just for trick or treating and it gets recomendedas the place to go on local fb groups. Some houses last year reported giving out nearly 500 sweet in just a few hours. Its insane! But sadly its overshadowed it for the locals with young kids as many people run out of sweets and its really overwhelming. It's also a health and safety nightmare as they drift all over the roads. Last few years they actually had volunteer crossing guards for peak areas. Some locals had crazy dreams of shutting roads for it.

I love that this village embraces it. But i do think its a little bit cheeky.

Our kids (adults now) stuck to our neighbourhood, but we live on a street where the houses are all on hills. 25 steps up to our front door, across the street houses are below street level. Our kids would sometimes go over to the next street where it was all flat and easier to get to the houses.

We get an average of about 25-30 kids, but the next street would get around 100. I make up for it by giving a handful of sweets to the kids with enough energy to make it up our stairs!

I live in the country. So I bring my kids to their cousins and they go with them.

We do travel to a few well decorated streets where the kids don't have to walk far. However, i take bags of sweets to compensate the houses and I also have sweets available at our house for other trick or treaters.

Wow, have you never heard this? That was what my mum made us do when we were kids - only houses where we knew who lived there AND had some sort of decoration.

Since moving here, I don't know everyone, but we just stick to our estate and just the decorated houses on it. I'd feel mega cheeky driving to another area to get sweets for my kids!

Our street goes mad for it, never seen anything like it other than on US TV shows. Feels like half the town turns up.

Last year one of our neighbours counted 1500 people visited her display.

My estate has progressively got worse and worse over the last few years. Last year was an absolutely horrendous experience - so many people were travelling in from out of the area that the roads were gridlocked with cars, people double parking dangerously all over the place, blocking people’s driveways etc, and hoards of children everywhere. It was so busy I felt constantly on edge about losing my child and we went out at 6pm by which time over half the houses we knocked on had already run out of sweets as they’d been inundated. In our own house we ran out within 20 minutes.

This year we’re going elsewhere with a friend! We’ve been driven out of our own estate by the Halloween tourists 😁

I definitely think it's cheeky. We moved to a new area, about 7 years ago and even though ive always hated Halloween, I thought, nice community I'll give it a go, know the neighbors kids and all that. We had over 100 trick or treaters in about 40 minutes, it's absolutely insane. The whole town has decided our area is the place to go and there would be probably at least 400 every year, driven from other parts of town that are just as walkable and safe as ours. Hardly anyone actually does it now because it's just too much.

Today people travel to more posh streets if they get more sweets. Quite normal. In the end people withdraw because of greed.