Page 6 | To think a UK holiday is still a proper holiday?

Driedpotatochip · 2022-10-30T10:43:46+00:00

I’m going to Argentina next week and a friend commented that it’s been ages since I had a proper holiday post covid. I’ve managed to do long weekends away and a week away twice in the UK and also went to Spain for a long weekend from 2020 to now. True I haven’t been to a destination that’s really far away since 2019 but I feel like i still had proper holidays. Aibu or does what I did not count as a holiday?

Goldencarp · 30/10/2022 12:51

I consider it a holiday. With one of our children being disabled we’ve only ever holidayed in the UK. As long as it’s warm and there’s a beach fir me that’s a holiday. B

FamilyTreeBuilder · 30/10/2022 12:52

Going by your friend's definition, my first "holiday" was when I was about 25. Because before that, my family holidays were in the UK and my trips abroad were for work.

MarshaBradyo · 30/10/2022 12:52

whumpthereitis · 30/10/2022 12:48

For me a holiday is going abroad. I realize it’s different for others however.

Have been camping once. I called that a punishment. Each to their own

Me too. Although I’m aware as you are that not everyone feels the same.

AllThingsServeTheBeam · 30/10/2022 12:52

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Wow. Are you ok? Is there honestly any need for your snidey patronising replies at all?

ArcticSkewer · 30/10/2022 12:54

I wouldn't call a weekend away a holiday at all, never mind a 'proper' holiday. It's a weekend away or a long weekend or possibly a mini-break.
A holiday in the UK is a holiday.
A 'proper' holiday ... that's abroad somewhere exotic with sun and a chance to feel you totally got away from it all.

But that's just my perspective. Everyone sees it differently.

DorritLittle · 30/10/2022 12:54

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 30/10/2022 12:28

I am sitting in a caravan in the uk. It is grey and damp out and I am drinking filter coffee and cuddling the dog. I am very much on holiday. I feel totally relaxed. I often don’t feel like this at home as I always feel like I should be doing something. After lunch we are off for a beach walk. Hopefully there will be hardly any people. Bliss.

Actually, maybe the likes of you and I should keep quiet and continue to insist to the holiday snobs that what you describe above is simply horrific and not in any way a proper holiday at all.

Remember what it was like during the heights of Covid, where all the 'proper holidayers' were left with no option but the UK 'scrag ends' that many of us appreciate and enjoy so much year in, year out - and the prices rocketed and everywhere booked up instantly?

This is true. I am quite relieved if people are going abroad again. I will happily do without them on my annual trip to my lovely west Wales beach 😀

AnApparitionQuipped · 30/10/2022 12:56

I do think there's an element of boasting when people express these views - like people who don't think instant coffee is 'proper' coffee - 'I have so much money that I can pretend I don't know the cheaper thing exists'.

EmpressoftheMundane · 30/10/2022 12:56

To each their own.

Perfectly fine to greatly prefer holidays abroad. A bit ostentatious and tacky to declare domestic holidays as “not proper holidays,” though.

Abraxan · 30/10/2022 12:59

Kolarbri · 30/10/2022 12:16

@PinkiOcelot No, a staycation to me is holidaying in the country you live in.

Staying at home when you have time off, and say doing day trips, having nicer food/takeaway going out to a theme park for the day or the cinema is simply just enjoying your leisure time, just like you would on any given weekend.

I think that's a fairly recent meaning of the word. It used to always mean staying at home but having day trips each day during the week. So doing what you'd do on holiday (vacation) whilst being (staying) at home.

I don't like the newer version of the term as I feel it diminishes a UK holiday to not being a 'proper' holiday.

MarshaBradyo · 30/10/2022 13:01

Staycation to me is stay at home, time off work and doing extra things

U.K. holiday is different

whumpthereitis · 30/10/2022 13:01

AnApparitionQuipped · 30/10/2022 12:56

I do think there's an element of boasting when people express these views - like people who don't think instant coffee is 'proper' coffee - 'I have so much money that I can pretend I don't know the cheaper thing exists'.

I’d say it’s more frame of reference than boasting. If you’ve only ever had fresh brewed coffee then instant isn’t going to seem like coffee to you. By the same token, if you’ve only known holidays as going abroad, then staying in the same country isn’t going to seem like a ‘proper’ holiday.

AnApparitionQuipped · 30/10/2022 13:04

whumpthereitis · 30/10/2022 13:01

I’d say it’s more frame of reference than boasting. If you’ve only ever had fresh brewed coffee then instant isn’t going to seem like coffee to you. By the same token, if you’ve only known holidays as going abroad, then staying in the same country isn’t going to seem like a ‘proper’ holiday.

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Which is fine when it's a personal preference and stays personal, it's when people use that to verbally minimise what other people enjoy that it becomes a form of boasting.

Ontopofthesunset · 30/10/2022 13:05

But surely it's not just where you go but what you do? For example, I live in a city and work from home. So a week's walking holiday in Cornwall or Scotland is very different from my normal life. Unless you spent a week or two in the UK doing exactly what you do when you're working, it's going to be different. I find a week walking along coastal paths is very relaxing and a complete change of pace and scenery. Not everyone would enjoy it, but it's certainly a holiday.

PeloFondo · 30/10/2022 13:08

Croque · 30/10/2022 12:01

I know a few people who have literally never slept away from their own home in decades. Not even when visiting family. It is the saddest thing because even a B&B two hours down the road for one weekend every year would broaden their horizons. It will never happen though.

I fall into that. Because I can't afford it
I've been abroad before, had a few 5 day trips to Dublin, been on a riding holiday in the U.K. etc
But no holidays (U.K. or otherwise) since 2009
It's not that I don't want to "broaden my horizons" (although I've lived in more places than most people), there just isn't the money for it

skyeisthelimit · 30/10/2022 13:10

A holiday is time off work, not dependent on whether you stay in the UK or go abroad.

It is very snobby to say that it is not a holiday if you don't go abroad. Not every can afford or want to go abroad , but their UK holiday is still very much a holiday to them.

I would have either a holiday, or a foreign holiday. Both are holidays.

drpet49 · 30/10/2022 13:10

279Nouveauxnoms · 30/10/2022 10:59

Agree with this, but realise that comes from a place of privilege.

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I agree too. I’m definitely not privileged. I haven’t had a holiday in 4 years

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 30/10/2022 13:11

Do you not understand the notion of subjectivity? To YOU, it can be a proper holiday. To ME, it is not.
There is nowhere in the UK that is different enough to me to be different.

It's all very well having preferences and things that you simply wouldn't consider for yourself, but that doesn't stop them from being what they actually are.

'Holiday' is just a neutral term meaning to get away from your normal location and normal circumstances, regardless of the specifics. You might as well say that other people don't earn 'proper' money (regardless of the amount), just because they choose to spend it differently from how you spend yours.

I wouldn't dream of eating cockles - they just look like crusty bogeys to me - but I don't deny that they are foodstuffs, nor that plenty of folk really enjoy eating them.

I'm sure a multi-millionaire walking down a street of modest Coronation Street-style terraced houses would never for a moment consider that they'd want to make one of them their home, and that, to them, it isn't a 'proper home' - but that still doesn't change the objective fact that they are perfectly good homes, by any definition of the word.

Choconut · 30/10/2022 13:13

We don't tend to go anywhere in the UK for more than a few days (as I find that's enough!) so to me that's not long enough to be a holiday, it's just a break.
I love to travel though so a holiday to me needs a flight and at least a week.

jellybeanteaparty · 30/10/2022 13:39

As someone said earlier it is very subjective. I think a week or more staying somewhere not your home doing something you choose to do because you like it is a holiday.

rainbowandglitter · 30/10/2022 13:41

AllThingsServeTheBeam · 30/10/2022 12:28

So if someone said to you when you got back from your UK holiday "did you have a nice holiday?" Would you correct them?

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Absolutely. When I returned to work I got asked if I'd been on holiday and I said no and that I'd just been away in the UK for a week.

Kolarbri · 30/10/2022 13:41

@DullAndOvercast Holidaying in your own house is just a ridiculous concept to me, and a contradiction in terms, so I will continue to use staycation to mean holidays in the country where you live.

AllThingsServeTheBeam · 30/10/2022 13:45

rainbowandglitter · 30/10/2022 13:41

Absolutely. When I returned to work I got asked if I'd been on holiday and I said no and that I'd just been away in the UK for a week.

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So a holiday.

AllThingsServeTheBeam · 30/10/2022 13:46

Kolarbri · 30/10/2022 13:41

@DullAndOvercast Holidaying in your own house is just a ridiculous concept to me, and a contradiction in terms, so I will continue to use staycation to mean holidays in the country where you live.

Incorrectly then

rainbowandglitter · 30/10/2022 13:49

AllThingsServeTheBeam · 30/10/2022 13:45

So a holiday.

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Nope not a holiday.

AnApparitionQuipped · 30/10/2022 13:51

Kolarbri · 30/10/2022 13:41

@DullAndOvercast Holidaying in your own house is just a ridiculous concept to me, and a contradiction in terms, so I will continue to use staycation to mean holidays in the country where you live.

Right, so you are unable to comprehend that some people might have a week off work, or their DC are off school, but they are unable to afford a week's accommodation outside their home - or perhaps they can't stay elsewhere because they are disabled or unwell and have specialist equipment that can't be moved. That's 'ridiculous' and 'a contradiction in terms' to you. This is exactly what I mean about snobbish boasting.