To hate going on holiday.

[TheMasterNotMargarita]

First you have to decide where to go. Research flights/accommodation/vicinity to places of interest bar/beach etc. Tedious.

Then you have to pack. DH does the actual packing but I always have to organise most of it. Which is actually the best part for me, I quite like packing .

Then you have to travel. If you stay in the UK you have several hours trapped in a car with your nearest and dearest. Before you spend the duration of the holiday with them every waking moment.

If you travel abroad you are in enforced close proximity to other people. And I don't really like flying.

Then you spend all your time trying to amuse your children without their toys, trying to get them to sleep in a strange place. They are hot, the food is weird, the bed smells different.....

I like warm weather. I enjoy being on holiday. I just CBA with all the effort. I'd like a Narnia style wardrobe that I could walk into and appear out the other side somewhere warm.and sunny already in my shorts and t-shirt.

DH loves a holiday. I told him to go without me. (But he can take the kids 🤣).

IANBU am I?

YANBU in my opinion. I probably am though regarding holidays. I just don't 'get' them and have a cynical view that a lot of it is people feeling that we 'should' want to go on them, rather than making a decision for themselves.
-I don't like flying
-I find everywhere in the world I've been is about the same as here, different weather, people speak differently, but that's about it.
-I don't like the feeling that if I fell and broke my leg, I wouldn't know where to go or what to do
-Same regarding every other given type of 'normal' life crisis
-packing
-unpacking
-I like where I am. I work (in different ways I don't mean just 'actual' work) at what I do in life to engineer it to be as good as it can be, my home, my friends, my social life, my family, my surroundings. Why would I want to leave it? Am I missing something?

YANBU! The best bit about going on holiday is coming home again at the end :)

I love my home, I love my shower and bathroom, I love that I don't have to share a bedroom with my sons any more (yes when they were 6 months old I wanted them in there, but now the 11 year old snores almost as loudly as DH...), I love that my kitchen has everything I need in it, where I need it (and the local restaurants are fab if I cba to cook or clear up), I love that there is so much to do on the doorstep and more importantly all it costs me is the mortgage payments which I have to pay anyway.

We are lucky that we live in a holiday destination anyway (top of the South Island, NZ) and that there are 2 national parks to play in on our doorstep but even so. We had a week in Fiji a couple of years ago and the only reason I could come up with for another week away this year was that it was lovely having a pool on site. Which isn't worth spending $6k on.

This year we are going to be enjoying all our holiday time at home - we'll plan days out, meals out, a couple of overnight tramps while the weather is good, beach days if it's sunny etc - but no travelling and no sharing a family room and no whinging from a bored boy who would rather be at home playing games than in a hotel room with not quite enough space.

(I do adore travel, but I do so much of that with work that I don't need a holiday away to enjoy it)

Yes to all of that!! Forgot about the expenditure.
I think also that there are very few places I actually really want to see. For instance, Im not fussed about going to New York. I've seen so many landmarks on TV/Google maps that I feel I'd be disappointed in real life.

I'm the complete opposite. I love everything about holidays, in fact my dream job would be planning peoples holidays. I really don't understand finding everywhere in the world the same, it really really isn't! And it makes me think you haven't really been anywhere! But then I enjoy being a bit outside my comfort zone and have lived in several countries, so I don't really have a strong attachment to 'home' wherever that might be. To me going somewhere new is the most thrilling thing ever! Horses for courses I guess.

Dont go on holiday then

Planning holidays is part of the fun!

And packing takes like an hour, tops.

"I've seen so many landmarks on TV/Google maps that I feel I'd be disappointed in real life."

Me too. I couldn't be bothered with going to for example New York, too stressful and I've already seen the sights on tv/internet.

I'm with you on the planning. So much pressure to get it right and too much choice. I tie myself in knots trying to make sure the apartment is within walking distance of amenities, has everything we want/need and available on the dates where the flights are cheapest etc.

But I love holidays and the guaranteed warm weather, eating out and diving in warm clear water, which is the main reason we go away these days.

Worst thing for me, as well as being trapped on a plane with the Maguluf crowd is missing the cats, even though they are always fine.

YANBU. Holiday planning is my favourite thing. I love the holidays themselves now too. The problem is with the DC. Small children, heat and holidays don't mix. No holidays were fun with mine till they were 7+. At that stage UK with castles was ok. Its only actually nice going abroad now mine are teens!

I do enough holidays for the most part but always, always have several moments when away thinking 'well this is just shit, what a waste of money, I want to go home'

glad it's not just me

Yanbu, with small children it's not a holiday just the same shit, different location. Mine are too young to amuse themselves, go to a kids club, stay up in the evening, so any relaxation time is traded off by amusing them is so much harder with all your toys, stuff etc.

Then there's the dilemma about whether you are all cooped up in one room in a hotel so you can have all your meals prepared or self catering so you have more space but means I have to do all the meal planning, food shopping and cooking in an unfamiliar place with none of the facilities of your normal kitchen (dh doesn't cook), which I hate.

If it was up to me I wouldn't bother with holidays until our kids were old enough to amuse themselves in the pool etc so it actually feels like a break.

For me I’d love a holiday and so would dh as we haven’t had one in afew years now. It would be amazing to spend time as a family and make memories! Even with having a toddler i’d still love a change of scenery!! You’re really lucky OP.

I think getting ready for holidays mentally and physically, with young kids is tough. For us all the organisational stuff pre holiday *(I mean washing, packing, getting medication, cancelling milk deliveries etc) usually falls to me and I am usually bloody shattered by the time we are ready to go. And I hate flying and airports - they are such terrible places - all the queuing, shoes off, lugging bags around, busyness etc. And when kids are young it is a nightmare getting them settled in a new environment. It does get easier as they grow up a bit though (less kid related rubbish to cart along).

Love holidays. I hate flying but would never let that put me off going. Never understand people who don't want to see as much of the world as possible. I personally don't count it as a holiday if it's in the uk.

I love holidays! I enjoy the planning, researching hotels and excursions etc. We go to places where there is a lot to see and do so go out almost every day, our toddler happily goes in the backpack and loves getting out and about, thankfully so far she's been a good flyer.
Yes you can see landmarks on TV but nothing beats seeing them in real life, such as standing at the bottom of half dome in Yosemite, it blows you away.

I like the fact I have respite from work, but we only take uk holidays as DP can’t fly. I feel like with my DS having autism the last few y3ars have been a bit trying. I’m always the organiser why the DP blissfully carries on like one of the children and I end up sorting everything out, packing, extra tickets he just drives. I feel I need another holiday by myself to get over the last holiday.

I'm with you op! Couldn't face going abroad again this year with 2 small children. We've had villa holidays last couple of times, but I find it so stressful packing up half my house and still needing to shop/cook when I get there. This year we have centre Parcs booked, takeaways and restaurant reservations have already been booked!

I love holiday planning, going to new places, finding out what there is to see, new cultures, different foods, broadening horizons. We go to places where there are things to do and see, and something for everyone. Yes, the travelling to and from can be a pain, and I hate leaving the dog and cat, but it’s definitely worth it IMO. We’re going to Slovenia soon, never been before and very excited!

I love planning holidays :) well, when i say planning, i mean going into thomas cook and booking an all inclusive resort. I am not going to spend my days on holiday going to the supermarket and then cooking.
I love doing the holiday clothes shop before we go.
I love researching about the place we are going.
I love flying.
Dd loves trying new food.
I Just love being on holiday.

I’m the opposite and love going on holiday. We do a weeks winter sun in February, week in UK in a cottage by the coast with the dog in spring, 2 week summer holiday in August/September and a European city break in November.
When my DS was young we booked self catering however we only ate breakfast in the apartment and all other meals were eaten out. I don’t go on holiday to cook 😀

I think my problem is that the family holidays we had, to villas in sunny places with a pool, are not the kind of holidays I'd really like to have.
I've enjoyed elements of them, swimming in a private pool everyday, eating out at different restaurants, warm evenings etc.
I dislike trekking around looking at stuff in the heat, going to the beach in the heat and going to water parks in the heat which the kids seem to love.
Ideally though I'd like to see colder places, city breaks etc. I loved New York in the winter possibly because we went there child free!
The cost of holidays bothers me, I often don't feel it's money well spent. Especially when the holiday my younger kids rave about is the cheapy caravan park one!

Holidays before dc - amazing, actually got to relax, see new places, do new things, eat what I want to eat, go where I want to go.

Holidays post dc - frustrating, expensive, argumentative, verging on boring, same different location. Not at all relaxing.

Funnily enough one of my and the kids favourite things to do on holiday is go to the supermarket! Seyeing different products, trying to use the language, the children love asking for things for themselves. If really enjoy that part.