Am I that unusual?

[Greysparkles]

To have never had a passport and never travelled to another country?

Was talking about holidays with friends recently, and got talking about airports etc and i mentioned I'd no idea what they were on about as I've never flown.
Well the looks I got! Like I'd grown an extra head!
Is it that unusual?! Am I the only one?!

I love travel, do so mostly solo, several times a year (I'm retired now) and always independently. I have backpacked in many countriesand generally off the beaten track. At one point, yes, I was proud of it, and couldn't understand people who weren't curious about the world and different cultures.

But then I got over myself and ditched the travel snobbery, thank goodness! I realised that I travel because I like doing so, and it doesn't make me special or better than other people at all.

OP, you do whatever makes you happy, and if you've no interest in travelling, that's absolutely fine. I dare say you have your own interests and your own ways of spending your free time.

I love holidaying in the uk (more than abroad), but I’d think it was unusual not to have even hopped on a ferry to France.

I was 14 when i first went abroad on a school trip and classmates were surprised then that I'd never been abroad (and this was just a normal comp so quite a range of backgrounds). So I'd say getting to 30 and never having been abroad would be quite unusual.

I know people now who haven't been abroad for many years but I don't think i know anyone who has never been abroad.

I had a passport and travelled across the other side of the world at 6months. I had travelled extensively by the time I was 8. I suppose it was quite unusual in the sixties.

I love Britain too and still have places I want to see both here and abroad. I love the quaint villages and beautiful beaches in Scotland.
The different dialects and the warm hearted people and I would like to go to Wales as I have only been twice but intend to visit some of the Welsh Coast. I have only been to Ireland once so I want to go there and to Shetland. There is so much to see and do here OP that I wouldn’t let it worry you but you might want to get a passport and see what else there is in the world.
I am looking forward to retiring then I hope I can fulfil some of my dreams.

I guess I’d be more interested in whether you were open and curious about other cultures and people?

Apart from trips with school neither DH or I went abroad as children, neither of our parents have ever had passports or been abroad.

We've only been abroad together 4 times in the 22 years and all were within the EU where we didn't need passports only photo ID!

The only reason we now have passports is because I had to travel to 2 long haul destinations with work and DH got one because we're going on our first long haul holiday this year.

This is not unusual in night out families and among our circle of friends some of whom have never had passports or been abroad.

I think it's very unusual at mid 30's

It’s quite unusual I would say. We were pretty poor growing up, so never went abroad with my family. I did do the french exchange when I was 14, a trip to Spain with the school at 15 and went to France with a friends family at 16.

That was all my travel until I was 31. Since then we’ve managed an on the cheap abroad holiday each year. I think I appreciate it more as for so much of my life going abroad was just so out of reach.

There is a huge, wonderful world out there. Seem a shame to deliberately ignore it all.

the sad thing is, it's now cheaper to go on a package holiday in a cheap foreign resorts than it is to holiday in the UK

It really isn't.

I've booked a caravan holiday here in the UK for a week, 7 nights for £350 in June, me and my 2 boys. Couldn't go abroad for that.

Me & ex took them to Spain and Tenerife and it cost a fortune, and it was so forgettable. I'd love to take them to Italy, France, Austria, Switzerland, Egypt, Japan... but as a single parent now I'm on a tight budget to even afford the budget caravan!

I do plan to travel alone when they have flown the nest.

I've been abroad once and in my early thirties. I went with the family I nannied for and had to get a passport for the first time. This was about 10 years ago now. Never had the desire to do it again, I'm just too anxious and terrified of flying. I grew up with a single mum on a low income, we'd be lucky to go camping in the holidays. Now I have my daughter I'm hoping to do it again so she doesn't grow up with same fears as me but is makes me sick thinking about it!!!

Unusual and super environmentally friendly! I travel abroad but no longer fly - people find that odd enough. Do what makes you happy OP.

I suspect you know that though and yes you are in a minority. Not just because you have never left the Uk, but more because you’re pretending you don’t know why people do and it’s just a “holiday”.

Yes, it struck me as a bit of a disingenuous question. Does anyone under about 90 really have no idea what the interior of airport looks like, even if they've only seen it on the telly? (Just off the top of my head: Love Actually, Up in the Air, Friends, The Terminal, Home Alone, Bridesmaids...)

I didn’t have a passport I got married in the mid 80s. Until then all my holidays were family breaks in Ireland and you didn’t need a passport between the U.K. and Ireland for that. I also had a couple of mini breaks to France with the school but back then you could get some sort of a travel document from the PO for that.

I’m now late fifties and am very well travelled. I now have the time, income and opportunities I didn’t have when I was young and I also have the confidence I didn’t have back then.

I think it's unusual. I also grew up poor but as an adult travelling is important to me. I lived in Ethiopia for a bit, and that has profoundly shaped me.

@DiseasesOfTheSheep

I just don't presume that people who choose not to travel abroad are "totally incurious" because they haven't added a caveat in their OP to explain something tangential to the main thrust of their thread. If you think that how you expressed your "genuine question" wasn't a bit unnecessarily unkind, that's fine.

Ok so I'm unkind for asking a straightforward question in response to her pretty clear statement
I'd say it's never been a top priority to go anywhere, I'm not saying I never will. Maybe I will, maybe I won't 🤷‍♂️**
Instead I should have imagined caveats to the OP and not responded to a thread she specifically created asking for viewpoints?

But you're totally reasonable for automatically assuming I have unkind intentions, conflating my question with a presumption, and slagging me off...

For what it's worth it was a genuine question - I genuinely don't understand how people can be so incurious about the wider world and there's clearly a genuine discussion to be had here.

So It'd be great if you could stop the personal attacks and derailing.

Don’t worry about it. People often go abroad on really horrible resort holidays, and do nothing but sit around a pool with hundreds over others, and have mediocre meals.
I know because they've told me.
I was surprised after a few people told me they didn’t leave the complex, or hire a car.
And wrist bands !
So I don’t think you’ve missed anything except sun, with a lot of people.

I think it’s quite unusual. I’m 48.

You can fly to the continent for less than a train fair in the uk.

I know a few people who have never been abroad and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. You are probably less “unusual” that many would think.

Me & ex took them to Spain and Tenerife and it cost a fortune, and it was so forgettable.

you could take a holiday in this country that costs a fortune too, depends where you go.

Taking my kids on a camping holiday in February half term or Easter holiday in this country would not be pleasant at all, it's bloody freezing!
A package holiday would cost me a lot less than booking a cheap hotel and flight in this country. I also take my kids here, and it really is not a cheap option.

You can fly from Birmingham to Dublin for a fiver...
Or to Krakow for 9.99.

@Veterinari Oh I'm the one with the personal attacks because I suggested your wording was unkind? Okey dokey. I'd say the key phrase in your quotation from the OP is "top priority". There are loads of reasons why travel isn't always "top priority" and most of them have very little to do with curiosity in my opinion. I haven't slagged you off, and I'm sorry you seem to think I have. I think you're lashing out because you don't like my opinion and you don't agree with me, but as I say, this is AIBU, so one does expect it somewhat.

You can fly to the continent for less than a train fair in the uk

And that's great, if you want to go. It comes across in some posts that I'm somehow "less than" because I have different interests and aspirations

It would be very unusual in my circle of family, friends and colleagues. Can't think of anyone I know well who doesn't normally have a passport. Most of us started travelling overseas as children with our families and carried on later by ourselves for work, family and fun reasons.