Most middle class family holiday destination? (just for fun!)

[Butterforbread]

I haven't spotted a middle class thread all week so thought I'd start one just for fun 😜
In your opinion what are the most middle class or umc holiday spots?
Summer:
Any part of France (extra posh if you have friends or family who have a house to put you & the kids up in!)
Italian Lakes
Greek Islands

Winter
Barbados or similar Caribbean Island
Skiing in the Austrian, Swiss or French Akps (wealthiest go to Switzerland)
Christmas markets

This is just for fun & based on the wealthier middle class families I know! They all seem to go to the same places!

The middle class UK destinations all have water sports going on…..sailing, surfing, kayaking. Stuff with engines not so good. Probably crabbing too.

There will be a fancy little deli selling the kind of stuff you’d get in London, good coffee and also some local seafood. It will be very expensive and have a long queue from the end of June, when the independent schools have broken up.

There will be parts of the area that are a bit shabby and not too shiny and overdeveloped. These places aren’t to look like Disney, but to to have more of a 60s vibe a few old fishing nets or rotting abandoned boats are more the feel.

They are very much not Center Parcs….although some of the people who go, might sometimes go to Center Parcs too. But Center Parcs is more downmarket. It might not be cheap, but it’s for people who don’t want to make their own entertainment but have everything on site. It’s fake countryside and fake water sports on a small pond in a pedalo or paddleboard with an instructor, not hillwalking or going off for the day in your own sailing dinghy along the creeks and to little coves. It’s children with bare feet who look a bit dirty because they’ve spent the day running from the holiday cottage to the Hard, or the Pit or wherever they dig in the mud and play on their boogie boards.

Dubai getting a bad wrap on here, but that's only because the British MC and UMC don't have the wealth to access Dubai's upper echelons so they're stuck at Saturday brunch with all the plebs 😂

I think that’s a very rude way to describe people but you are right in that there is a side to Dubai that people here obviously aren’t aware exists and that they’d more than likely never be part of.

Even the French Eurocamp type places seem to have a more upmarket clientele

I was hoping the laughing face might convey that I don't actually think people are plebs, but the internet is quite a literal place!

I was trying to find a word to describe those who MC see as beneath them - in a tongue in cheek way.

My objection to Dubai is an ethical and moral one rather than a price objection 🤷‍♀️

The rules & destinations are constantly changing! Personally I think it's fascinating!
I'm 37, when I was young France was the ultimate in mc poshess. A week in France (preferably in a friend's or family's house) & a week skiing in winter (usually France again!)

Because there aren’t many package/all-inclusive holidays in France! Lots of people put off by the idea you might have to actually speak some of the language and get around by yourself! At least I think this is why my WC PILs don’t go 😂

@twocatsandtwokids - this made me laugh! 😆 Probably a spot on summary though(!) I’ll add to this that you can holiday there for very little too, due to the UK’s proximity to it. Both cheap flights and ferry crossings (at least they were pre-Covid 🙄). Plus excellent food/wines etc at a reasonable price. France represents good value for money, which appeals to the MC.

How have I managed this?

I've stayed at Salcombe + other villages along the way
North Norfolk (ex MIL's summer homes)
Saunton
Croyde (two caravans down from the beach)
Woolacombe
Pembrokeshire
Witterings
and the now MIL's cottage on Dartmoor both whilst she's there and when she was in Cambodia for two months.

We've been talking about booking a holiday next year as well. Places that appeared on the list;

The Black Forest because DP liked it when he was working there for a while and thinks I will, too. Maybe somewhere around Bodensee instead, like Meersberg.
Sardinia, Sicily or one of the little islands.
Norway.
I kind of fancy the idea of Liechtenstein for some reason. Probably because of watching Heidi after school.
La Rochelle appealed on the basis of it being in every single French textbook.

Just as likely to hop onto the Roscoff Ferry, though. There's bound to be somewhere nice.

Does that mean I've been making MC choices despite being an underclass scumbag from birth?

I wouldn't say Dubai is middle class, I'd say it's for brash people who have no regards for human rights!

Middle class holiday destinations:
South of France
La Manga (Spain)
Santorini
Portugal

@Glitterspy your responses made me LOL all my NCT group, bar a couple, are made up of similar! I thought I was doing OK in life until I met them! 😂

Surely that “side to Dubai” that they don’t have the wealth to access still wouldn’t be of interest because it wouldn’t be full of “people like us”?

The key part of the British class system is that it can still be very sniffy about ostentatious displays of wealth, or anything that is considered too glitzy/gauche. Hence the fondness among certain MC groups for camping/kayaking, or places that are wealthy but restrained, rather than displaying the more “in your face” glitziness of the likes of Dubai.

A slightly faded villa which happens to be close to a lovely little restaurant in a quiet village somewhere would be more the thing.

I’m sorry. I’m not feeling great today and it probably went right over my head but even so it’s not a nice thing to say even with a laughing emoji on the end it.

@coolernow you have to have a boat to enjoy salcombe 😉

The key part of the British class system is that it can still be very sniffy about ostentatious displays of wealth, or anything that is considered too glitzy/gauche.

why is this though? Is it a fear that grand displays would cause the peasants to revolt? You see it with the Royal family, highlighting budget flights & rewearing clothes as if somehow this means they are any less rich.

@VerbenaVerbana Dubai would be my worst nightmare! Horrific human rights issues, covered up with glitzy hotels and the idiots that go there from western countries help fund this! Sums up the vacuous, image obsessed culture of today! (God I sound so old reading that back 😂)!

@sopsmum we had one day on a boat but the hills & parking were a pain in the arse

@NeverDropYourMooncup

La Rochelle appealed on the basis of it being in every single French textbook.

This is exactly right and made me laugh! What about a Grenoble (hate the sound of it)?

where are the other nice beaches nearby? I'd happily go instead.

I have to say thought that the booked parking system (introduced during covid?) really seemed (to me) to have inproved the situation with traffic. I go a couple of times every summer abd i cant remember the last time there was any queuing.

@coolernow those in the know have a pontoon mooring and a permit to park in the boat car park.......

I don't get the attraction of south sands though. Grubby little beach.

@sopsmum I need to get new friends, they only had a house!

Absolutely agree. Chavtastic!

I do want to try Dubai, I went to Las Vegas a few years ago & expected to hate it. The food was amazing in most places we ate.

That was sort of my point, the very wealthy in Dubai don't do glitz and glamour either, because as you say it's ostentatious and immodest.

But unlike here, you just can not access that side of things if you are a normal MC/UMC person because wealth by Gulf standards is almost unimaginable.