To not understand why people go abroad on holiday in the summer?

[Dogscanteatonions]

My social media is full of people on holiday abroad at the moment. It's glorious here and I've got a few days off work so I've just been for a walk round my village and will spend the afternoon in the garden reading in the sun with a couple of glasses of something.

Britain is lovely in the summer - I'd far rather go abroad later or earlier in the year when the weather is not so good here and make the most of the weather here while we have it.

I've never really understood the desire to go abroad while it's nice here. Anyone else with me?

If you home educate presumably you don’t work/are supported by your partner? You also don’t face the issues surrounding childcare etc. And it will be easier for you to holiday in teen time for obvious reasons. It honestly amazes me how people have such difficulty comprehending that others have different lives - understanding that others have different features and life experiences to yourself is in the EYFS as an expected goal for children of about 3.5 - 4 years old. And yet here are full grown adults who apparently can’t understand whatsoever that others have different lives/thoughts/experiences.

Yes DH is the sole/main earner - I am an artist and do commissions here and there but it’s not an income really.

If the latter was at me, I’ve said repeatedly that people like different things!

I live in Scotland. It's 15c here. I went to Lanzarote last week to get some sunshine.

It cost me a fraction of the cost of my holiday in the south of England last year.

So I go abroad because the weather is only nice in some parts of Britain and those places are far more expensive than than the med.

If I stay at home, I never fully relax as I get distracted by everyday life. If I go aimewhere else in the UK, it is extortionate and I need to hire a car fir a lot of places.
Plus I enjoy discovering new places. I don't travel just to sit in the sun

OP many reasons why people go away. Sometimes holidays are a break from routine and getting away from 'it'; not just weather related.

I'm the opposite. I live abroad and resent having to travel to the UK in the summer. It's such a gamble and I would rather stay here. (32 here today)

But, we haven't been back since 2019, so the grandparents (understandably) want some time with their grandchildren. I hope it is sunny.

I think that the Uk is fine for spring, autumn.

P.S. the price we have paid for a week in Devon doesn't help either! If it rains, or the weather is overcast, I shall be mightily unimpressed!

Those of you engaging with @Kanaloa , if you check the posting history, you will see that he/she/they seem to get a lot of pleasure from riling up other posters and being pedantic.

The weather is unreliable and going to places is expensive as is eating out in this country. Even self catering accommodation is now expensive. We do holiday in this country but we love going abroad to see and experience new places. (And the weather).

Interesting point that has been made about holidaying abroad that I hadn’t really thought of.

For the past few years we either book an Airbnb or apartment, or if it’s a hotel. we go for adult only. This is a must for us as we don’t want to be surrounded by kids on holiday.

Are there even hotels in the uk where you can choose adult only? I have no idea! . TBH, it wouldn’t make any difference to us as we don’t holiday in the uk for all the reasons that have been stated already in this thread.
just got me thinking though 🤔

Not everyone goes away for the weather! I couldn’t give a shit about the weather of the country I’m going to.

@Hellsbe I think Warners holidays are adults only or at least they used to be.

Because when my kids were small I preferred them to be having fun in swimwear and sunshine, rather than having them whining about being bored while dressed in raincoats.
If I'd have suggested a museum or stately home they would have disowned me.
I took them on holiday once in the UK, to Devon in a caravan, it lashed it down all week, everyone was cold, wet and miserable and it cost me a fortune in food, drink and entertainment.
No thank you. Every holiday since has been abroad.
They're married with their own kids now and all their holidays are abroad too, for the same reason.
It's not hard to understand really op.

That’s a bit sad they had no interest in museums and stately homes!

My parents gave us the most cultured upbringing possible. Every single weekend was traipsing around stately homes and museums and listening to radio 4 and cultured discussions and debates around the dinner table. Holidays were all hiking / walking / camping with days out to national trust properties. I cannot tell you how much I longed for a day trip to a theme part or a week in Majorca in a water park like my school friends had.

I like day trips to national trust now but I cannot bring myself to visit museums. I still associate them with boring days out of childhood.

I am very keen to give my own children a real mix and variety of experiences.

My parents gave us the most cultured upbringing possible. Every single weekend was traipsing around stately homes and museums and listening to radio 4 and cultured discussions and debates around the dinner table. Holidays were all hiking / walking / camping with days out to national trust properties. I cannot tell you how much I longed for a day trip to a theme part or a week in Majorca in a water park like my school friends had.

I like day trips to national trust now but I cannot bring myself to visit museums. I still associate them with boring days out of childhood.

I am very keen to give my own children a real mix and variety of experiences.

I had a similar upbringing and absolutely loved it. Never wanted or wished for something more normal or fashionable. Strange isn’t it.

It’s cheaper for us to go abroad. I wouldn’t mind English holidays but the weather is shit and they’re very expensive.

Because I live in Scotland and it’s about 15c here and due to rain the next few days. Sick of rain.

During the last couple of summers we did uk holidays due to covid. Given the choice I would always go abroad. My personal reasons:

1. UK weather is too unpredictable. Both times we went in August and, on one of them, out of a week we got 2 dry days. The rest it rained.

1. The UK is so expensive compared to holidays abroad. Our all-in costs for 7 nights camping in Cornwall could have gotten us a week all-inclusive in Europe.

1. I like to experience other cultures and cuisines

1. I like to go sightseeing. There's not much to see in the UK comparable to the rest of the world.

I can’t imagine how boring it must be for kids being traipsed around godawful stately Homes and NT properties and being told that it’s a fun holiday..
i don’t know a single child who wouldn’t prefer to go to a theme park or a water park than do this.
As soon as they hit early teens you can almost
guarantee they’ll refuse to go on holidays like this.

Eeeek I've litera6 been guilty of a post and run today. I started this thread full of the idyll of the UK in the summer then sliced my hand open cutting tomatoes and ended up in A&E for hours to get stiched up!

Lots of very valid reasons I guess but for me I'll stay here in the nice months and enjoy it and escape abroad when it's the rubbish months here

I also hate it when DC are traipsed round these places as it spoils the peace

I love flying, airports, cruises, travel to other countries, experiencing different cultures, sight seeing, swimming in the sea, snorkeling, wearing summer clothes everyday and evening.
I've just retired and DH will be retiring at the end of the year. We'll be on holiday as much as possible. Going abroad all year round.
Having nice weather here is pointless if you're stuck in an office somewhere and then when you do go away in the UK you end up watching the forecast all week, if the weather is shit the holiday is wrecked. If we go away in the UK we either go last minute, Center parcs, or for a city break where the weather doesn't matter so much.

Well, it all depends on the parents and children.

We are history nerds and DD. was taken with us to museums and stately homes since she was born.
We just spend a long weekend in Derbyshre and covered 3 stately homes plus walks. Three weeks earlier we went to Hampton Court. (again), we had to cancel the Tower as I fell ill.

She "lectured" DH on a painting of Mary Queen of Scots.

Her dream is to live at Hever Castle.

She also likes a theme park or a water park, she loves white water rafting, horse riding, zip lining, paintballing (all she did with either of us or with her Scout/Explorer group during holidays).

Oh, she is 15 now and most likely will do history for A-Level.

Friends never took their boys to any historic building or museum unless it was about dinosaurs. She has no interest herself and just assums her boys will find it boring as well. So obviously now they are not interested.

I totally understand why people want to go abroad. If you to swim in a blue sea on a hot day, Blackpool and Scarborough aren't the places to be. We're incredibly lucky to have continental Europe on our doorstep.

However, I do think we put the UK down too much. For example, last week, I went to Cambridge. It was a bright, sunny morning, and I remember thinking that there was nowhere in the world I'd rather be. I had a coffee, wandered around the bookshops, looked at the gorgeous old buildings - lovely. I'd sure as hell rather go to Cambridge, Oxford, York, Edinburgh or Bath than Las Vegas or Florida.

Weirdly, I've never appreciated the UK more than when I've spent time with people who moved here. I knew an anglophile American academic, for example, who taught me to see Britain with different eyes. We'd go to Cambridge and she'd say "wow, just think...this is the place DNA was discovered. Newton studied here. And then, 200 years later, Darwin was here, and then 100 years after him Wittgenstein and Nabokov. Isn't it amazing?" It was the same when we went to London. To me, London is a noisy, stressful, dirty place. But to her it was magical.

I'm no fan of nationalism, but we definitely go too far in the other direction. There are too many sneering liberals with too much influence. They pretty much dominate the media and the arts, and we then absorb their self-loathing. I'm often weirdly uncomfrotable when foreigners like Britain. I sort of expect them to hate the place.