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?

When I was little, my parents used to book our holidays in June and take me out of school but that was long before the fines. I think the dining of parents for holidays is abhorrent to be honest! Even though it doesn’t affect me, it’s just a ridiculous bloody thing to do.

....emissions..(tin hat on and runs away)..

I'm half and half. I can understand why some people like to go abroad, but it's not that important to me. We normally have a self-catering family holiday in a UK seaside village in the spring and I like it because:

1. It's good value (we could afford more now but that hasn't always been the case)

1. It's easy to get to - only about a 2 hour journey for us, no getting up in the middle of the night, faffing about with passports and tickets and check-ins or having to be somewhere hours before the actual departure time

1. We're all fairish people who don't really enjoy extreme heat

1. It's really relaxing - we like the scenery, walks, beaches, surfing, revisiting old favourite places and exploring one or two new places every year. There's plenty to see, honestly.

As it happens, I do quite enjoy short city breaks in other countries and before the pandemic I usually went on one about once every two years, on my own (though sometimes meeting local friends while I was there). Although I do find the logistics of travelling frustrating, I can cope with it if I want to go badly enough and it's certainly a lot easier to co-ordinate one person than four. DH has never been very interested in doing this - he worries about the environmental cost of flying and genuinely loves our own region so much he thinks its got everything he needs to enjoy himself. One of my now adult DC occasionally used to come with me on one of these trips. But it was never about going to a warmer place or a beach (we live near beaches already). If anything I'd quite like to get away to a cooler place to get away from the hottest parts of an English summer.

I’m guessing your kids are young! It’s going to be fun when they get older and stop being so compliant.
i’n willing to bet that you won’t be so successful at persuading them that board games and hot chocolate in a tent are a substitute for a fun holiday abroad. Come back in a few years and let us know’😀

There you go, assuming your holiday abroad is “fun” as if it’s an objective statement rather than subjective opinion. 🙄 My kids aren’t compliant either - they have adhd, one has PDA and they’ll tell you very quickly if they don’t want to do something. Now stop making ridiculous assumptions about people you don’t know.

@ForestFae As I say, come back in a few years and tell us how you’re getting on.

I was bought up in a similar way, we had abroad and uk holidays, very clearly I didn’t prefer the abroad did I! Is it impossible for you to comprehend all kids are different?

I think my view is partly coloured by dinner holidays in the South of France as a kid where we drove miles and miles in the heat with no Aircon to get to a cottage then every day were woken up at 6am ish to drive miles and miles to see a town or castle and traipse round in the heat.

I would have killed to be left at home and in fact was when I was old enough

@ForestFae my kids have never wanted to be homeschooled though ? They know the alternative and mix with a variety of people in life so they are fully aware that the life we live is not necessarily the same as others
At no point did i say mainstream was better or worse
I have always made mine aware and they have had choices in decisions we make over the years

We've had 2 holidays so far this yr one in Dorset and one abroad. Then we have most of August off abroad. Dorset is significantly warmer than the north where we are based. Dp's home country is a similar climate to our own, obviously, the Canary Islands (Our second August holiday) are just warm and temperate all yr round.
We both quite like doing nothing but tanning for a week, a visit to her home country means traveling and sightseeing socializing with friends and family.

So a good mix of home and away, traveling and being lazy. However, I would say the UK is expensive and the service from hospitality staff a bit shoddy comparatively to our European counterparts.

We love going abroad for holidays, especially in the summer as we live in a popular holiday region of the UK and numbers treble. Sun is not guaranteed in the UK in August. We have to book our leave in advance and want the weather to be good. Generally service is better abroad, its cheaper and I want my kids to experience different cultures, food, standards of living etc.

You should feel sorry for them. They are so blinkered in their lives, they cannot see past the end of their nose. If anything went wrong in their lives because of that, they would fail dramatically and hard. They wouldn't be able to cope. They cannot understand how others live or how they cope. Really, they live very sheltered lives and will never fully understand the world.

It's a sad way to live I think. But they are happy in their bubble.

It’s lucky we all like different things to reduce the crowds!

I live in another country, summers are warm and sunny and I indeed have a nice garden and my own pool. So according to this thread it would be stupid to travel at all?
It's about new places, experiences, culture, food etc etc, not just sunloungers.

That is definitely true!

Ifeveryone stayed in the UK during the summer holidays the honey spots would be absolutely rammed and no one would have any pleasure. The Lakes and other places were horrendous when lockdown was lifted but we couldn't yet travel abroad.
At least with people going abroad it spreads the load at peak holiday times

We have just been to Greece. Our hotel had about half a dozen couples/families - clearly it was out of season there. We stayed in a fishing village with half a dozen tavernas and a couple of cafes. We could get a cooked meal all day long, and past our bedtime! We went to little villages, not tourist destinations, and we could go in a taverna, with maybe one old man sitting outside (could have been the owner for all we knew) and they would cook us a meal on the grill, even if they wouldn’t do anything from the oven! Portions were massive!

We are staying in Scarborough for 2 nights. We got back to the hotel at 8 pm, after being out in the countryside all day today, a Friday:

1. first restaurant we went to, open per Trip Advisor, was closed at 8.15 pm
2. next restaurant, open per its website until 9.30 pm, we walked in at 20.39 pm and they told us, after this lot (the diners), the kitchen was closed!
3. next restaurant (a fish and chip cafe), notice on the door, said it’s closing time was 9.30 pm. We walked in at 9 pm, and they said, they weren’t serving - I’d expect a fish and chip shop to be able to cook fish and chips within 5 minutes? We certainly wouldn’t take 25 minutes to eat it.
4. Most chip shops, pubs and cafes around the harbour were clearly closed after 8.30 pm

This is a holiday seaside town and we found it difficult to find anywhere to eat after 8.30 pm on a Friday night! We live in the South, where people are lucky to get home from working in London by 7 pm, and it’s normal to go out to eat at 8.30 pm onwards! Given the choice between Greece and Scarborough for a holiday, and it’s no contest!

For most of the past 15 years I’ve holidayed in the UK, normally Scotland. There’s only been one summer that wasn’t two weeks of gorgeous weather with one or two rainy days. That was a two week holiday in Scotland in two different places, first week lovely weather but the second was dreadful. Last summer was a glorious fortnight in the north of England. Just hoping I’ve not now jinxed my Scottish holiday this year!!

I think it depends where you live. Where I live we have loads of nice weather but that isn't the case everywhere. Also, it's actually too hot here right now and would be more comfortable if I had a pool to swim in. But I only get that abroad!

West Scotland hasn’t gone above 17C all week. We don’t all live in the sunny south 🙄

I live in Scotland. I can't think of more than once or twice in my (long) lifetime that we've ever had more than a week of sunshine in Summer.

What Scotland have you been visiting for the past 15 years that it’s been almost consistently ‘gorgeous?’

Maybe you have a different idea of ‘glorious’ weather to me. I think of glorious weather as really hot, nice enough to swim outdoors in just a swimsuit/bikini, nice enough to splash in the sea etc. No draught or rain, no sudden cold evening etc. I don’t associate that type of weather with Scotland or England.

Having said that Scotland is well worth a visit as it’s very beautiful in parts. Also very expensive though if you want to go to the islands etc. And the weather is unlikely to be gorgeous consistently if we’re being realistic.

I think you’re getting a rough time ForestFae - I love forests, mountains, views and such like too.. my wife and I had one Greek holiday years ago and after three days on the beach we were bored silly. Too hot to walk anywhere much though. We still enjoyed it but we’ve been to the Lakes and the Scottish Highlands ever since and love it. Long walks, somewhere we can take the dog and she loves it just as much as we do. That’s the thing though isn’t it - we know what we like so we do it. And I hope everyone who loves beach holidays abroad in the sun has a fab time too. Especially this year as I think we’ve all earned the holiday we want after the last two years. Maybe I’ll see you atop a mountain in the Highlands somewhere one day! 😁

@Shunter350 completely agree. It's the elephant in the corner.

Cop26 is completely forgotten about as people 'need' their relaxation time in the sun. At least once a year - if not 3/4/5 times a year.