Upper Middle Class not well travelled AIBU?

I am curious though about what 'well-travelled' means to you. Travelling to lots of different places doesn't necessarily mean much in itself. It's possible to go to a different identikit resort in a different country every time you go abroad. That's just ticking countries off on a map.
I think the idea of being well-travelled to me has a sort of assumption behind it about what travelling should be for - that it's some sort of personal growth or learning experience related to engaging with different cultures and acquiring new knowledge and perspectives.

Thank you so much for this, @DiscoElysia - I came on to say exactly this, but you have expressed it so much more eloquently than I.

There are so many parts of the world which hold little interest to me...I lived in Japan, but rest of the Far East has little fascination. I have no ambition to go there. Likewise, South/Central America. At 10, I read every book I could find on the Maya, the Inca etc, but now...nah. Just nah. I went through the Panama in 1972 en route to the UK, Panama City back then was a shithole of gangsters. America? Been to New York...you can keep it. Newfoundland was lovely, but then, I have family connections there back to 1773.

BUT...the Classical World, oh yes, please...DH and I went somewhere in the Med maybe 5-7 x per year. Not to lie on beaches, not to get sun (too much of that in my youth), but to explore, to absorb, to revel, to consume like the richest banquet, the sweetest wine imaginable. Every ruin, every obscure and overlooked site...we did the entire Limites Romani - the Roman borders, except Libya. Degrees in Classical languages and culture, so these places are as breathing air, as meat and drink to us. Do I want to go to Bali? Like hell. Vietnam? Nah, DH was there in the 70s, gun in hand. India?...just possibly, for the Alexander effect, but not now-too old. See, there's travel, and then there's travel. Concerning tastes there's no dispute - the reference might be familiar to some.

I think you'll find The Beckhams 🤢 etc go to the same places . Mind you they are definitely not upper class

What is also interesting is this terminology "done": we have "done this place."

It sounds like box-ticking more than really experiencing.

I live in a very wealthy area full of people who work in banking, went to Oxbridge etc and a huge number of them do the types of trips you describe regularly but many have also done the US, Japan, South Africa. Also, many people would’ve travelled to more adventurous places before having children but don’t want to travel across time zones with young kids.

I’m extremely fortunate to be in a high income level and have done the US and South Africa multiple times with my children and also Japan and all over Europe. Prior to having kids DH and I went to places like Russia and India which I wouldn’t do with young kids.

I think this post has hit on some interesting points, especially that cheaper travel and package deal travel has taken the exclusivity out of far flung places.

I think now dashing about all over is seen as not having found your niche/ a nice enough destination, or even as being driven by what you picked up cheaply when you looked online.

I do think the curious should continue to be curious, but if, on the other hand, you have found something you all love, why not repeat it? Devil's Advocate might just say you've never found an experience nice enough to want to keep returning op.

Also you don't stop getting exposure to new cultures just because you re-visit: you deepen your understanding. And maybe some see that as more valuable than a tourist view of dozens of places.

We go to the same place every year - we like it there. We spend 10k-ish on the certainty that we’ll have a good time. To us, it’s a lot of money to waste/risk on somewhere new. I don’t particularly like travel - airports, the plane, queuing, all a bit overrated for me!
Went backpacking a bit when young but it was really pretty unpleasant. I have a rule that if it’s not nicer than where we live I’m not going!

I don't see anything wrong with returning to a favourite place year after year. When I was going on holiday with my parents, we went back to the same hotel in the same resort for about 7 years running. We all loved the place, it suited us all perfectly, it was familiar, and we used to meet up with the same adults/children each year, who were obviously doing exactly the same thing! Later we had a villa in Spain which we visited about 3 times a year, we could leave our personal stuff there so no need to haul large suitcases around which was great.

I'm done with travelling somewhere new just for the sake of it - I've been to the USA, Middle East, Hong Kong, the Caribbean, a good proportion of Europe, and now I prefer staying home anyway!

She’s just making an observation, no need to be so offensive

I'm not sure what the point of the op is. Have these people claimed to be well-travelled? Is it necessary for someone to be well-travelled? What is actually meant by being well-travelled?

I think there are a lot of people ticking off countries and/or sights, but that doesn't mean they are well-travelled. I think you need to live somewhere really to know what it's truly like.

There's nothing wrong with going to the same places regularly. As people get older, I think they prefer this. When my parents first retired, they went on holidays all over the place. Ten years later and they have a handful of places they like and return to regularly.

Personally, I prefer to go to new places. However, we do tend to revisit the same country, but different parts of it, until we decide to try somewhere else.

I do think people need to be travelling less tbh.

Maybe because it’s easy you know your way around you may know some people.

It was the mention of class that did it. It's not really possible to discuss class on MN (and more widely in the UK, tbh) without hitting people's buttons. An observation like OP's has an extraordinary ability to offend almost everybody, and to make everyone else feel that they either need to defend themselves or explain the nuances of the class system

Only for the people who don't like travelling anyway.

btw, I'm not sure why you are getting a hard time here? You are not having a go at them for making these choices. You are not worrying about it. You are not amazed that other people make different choices from you. You don't think this is the burning issue of the day. You are just making a casual observation, musing a little and then starting a conversation about it, just like most of us presumably do in every day life. Mumsnet would be lacking something if no-one did this.

Love this, was thinking the same thing!😂

I’m as smart as they come. I go to Nong Khiaw in Northern Laos every year and sleep in a bamboo hut with no air con and massive🕷️. Everyone is different.

I'm not sure the going to the same place every year is class related - I think quite a few people like things to be predicable, they don't feel comfortable with change and like to surround themselves with familiarity.
I need to go somewhere different - I can't even stay in the same location for longer than 4 days...the thought of returning to the same place every year leaves me cold. Fortunately dh feels the same and our dcs have never known any other way. I love arriving somewhere new and sussing out the scene, the change is refreshing and exciting.

Maybe they don’t worry about status and don’t feel the need to “prove” how upper middle class they are by making a point of holidaying in Thailand one year and trekking the Hindu Kush the next.

In my experience a lot of upper middle class people nowadays are quite anti flying and less likely to want to fly on holiday than much poorer people. It will be ferries to a gite in Normandy or Eurostar skiing.

I have significantly reduced travelling by plane to reduce my carbon footprint. Therefore most holidays now are in Europe.

Yes I know some families like this. In fact there is one family in particular who we are quite good friends with, but DH and I have commented on how different their approach to holidays is. They have quite a lot of money and come from a posher background than us. They have a family holiday house somewhere fairly remote in Italy. They spend part of the summer there every year and the mother has done that since she was a child. But they know almost nothing about Italy at all. They can't speak Italian. They drive but have never stopped on the way to visit Italian cities or explore different parts of Italy/Europe. They also go skiing regularly. They don't do any other holidays that I can think of, except they have on family member who through work has lived in a couple long haul destinations so they visited them there. They are lovely people, but we do find their lack of interest in exploring different places interesting.

Particularly enjoying all the replies telling OP she's narrow minded, envious and/or simply doesn't understand, definitely not qualified to wonder about something she's observed ... while also playing top travel trumps on who's better travelled by the most exacting definition and has holiday homes in more desirable places 😏

Oh, silly, you wouldn't like Barbados or Mauritius in the summer! Don't you know when the stormy seasons are? You wouldn't leave the hotel in any case: your sort never do, except to grab an Insta photo. If you were really well travelled like me, you'd have had enough of that by now and use your holidays to relax in the family beach house or mountain chalet. Or <tinkly laugh> if you don't have any, just go to your favourite aparthotel in the Canaries, you'll find you soon feel at home with People Like You and be happy to see them every year. Do you see, darling, we're not so different after all!

Not sure about the class thing at all. What?

My family have gone on holiday to the same part of the West Country almost ever year since my father was born in 1934. No holiday home, just B&Bs, cottages, tents, whatever. It feels like strong roots and the familiarity holds the generations together. When I’m there now I feel my parents and grandparents, my DC when they were young, I can picture my future grandchildren. We all go to the same places and discuss the slightest change. It’s fantastic! Each year’s holiday just blends into one big celebration of family in the memory.

We've all travelled widely as well, together or separately. Those trips are great too, but fulfil a different need I think.

They probably have family homes there. We had a family house in France and went there multiple times a year, it was a home from home with all our clothes and a lovely pool we didn’t have to share with strangers.

In my experience as an observer—I’m from one of those “symbolic” holiday spots where middle and upper-middle class families spend their summers—these people are also big savers, so the holiday home was likely inherited.
And, very importantly, they use the place for networking with other similar families.

Human tribes also used to migrate and move around in groups, so seeing someone you know in a faraway place has an oddly powerful bonding power

I once bumped into a woman who works in my local chemist in a cafe in Antigua.
It was bizarre. You know that thing where you see someone who's really familiar and you speak to often - but you can't place them because they're out of context? Well that happened to both of us. Blank stares for a few seconds.
Completely bizarre.

Not sure why it’s your business how ‘upper middle classes’ spend their money or their time? I suspect we are what you would define as UMC: 7figure income, two homes, two luxury cars, all of us educated to at least degree level/at uni, parents with professional qualifications, DC were privately educated to 16, oh, and the obligatory spaniels? Ie is it’s about money for you, isn’t it, not ‘class’ per se?

We just do the one annual fam holiday and DH did used take the DC skiing in Feb each year as I hate it. But part of our UMC lifestyle is that DH works 12-14hr days, 7 days a week, travels overseas 40% of the time with work, is based in London mon-thurs minimum when not travelling, and our kids were either in school, or now, uni. We actually enjoy being at home together as that is more of a novelty for someone who is often not in the primary home with the kids and dogs for more than 8 nights a month. The annual holidays have been in the US, Mexico, far east in the past so we and kids are well travelled enough. They prefer short hall/Europe though tbh.

I think you, like other threads I’ve read lately, have a SM fed idea of MC life - no we don’t eat out one day a week, or holiday all summer in Nice etc. We’re as likely to go to a rock gig as we are La Boeheme; DH goes to an overseas grand prix once a year and a golf holiday with his mates for one long weekend a year, We go to the theatre/opera/ballet/gigs 6-12x a year, to cricket at Lords/Oval half a dozen times, Wimbledon if lucky enough to get a corporate invite or, once, because we won the ballot. We shop at M&S and Waitrose and Sunday lunch was a £42 sirloin, 30 day aged beef joint for 4 people yesterday [and the dogs] and a £18 bottle of red (better than any overpriced restaurant). We can’t be bothered with golf club memberships and posh country club gym memberships because when would DH in particular have the time to use them given his work schedule? Plus the people in them are not ‘our type’ of people. We just love long country walks with the spaniels, a few drinks in a country pub or on our own patio afterwards.

That’s plenty MC for us. Being MC is about being comfortably off enough - privileged enough - to have access to a wide variety of cultural activities, the funds to support it, and choices about how we spend our time and money… which is usually about being together as a couple or a family and very often revolves around being in one of our homes because we love them and spent years renovating and getting them to the standard they are.