I hate our holiday and want to go home

[Backwoods57]

I need to rant.

Day 10 of a 13 day visit to the UK. We moved to the USA in 2014 and have to come back every year because MIL can't afford to visit us, and is scared of flying. We are in Aldershot/Farnham area. There is nothing to do apart from walk up and down dead high streets. Traffic is terrible, I smell the pollution and cigarette smoke everywhere.

If we don't come we get a massive guilt trip about MIL not seeing grandkids etc.

This trip cost $4000, we have done very little apart from visit family and sit in my SiL's cramped dirty messy house.

2 weeks of my 3 week vacation allowance has been thrown away. I have start working remotely for A. Something to do, and B so I can claim some vacation days back.

I miss my home, our dogs, I miss countryside and wildlife, I want my space back.....and tap water that doesn't taste like bleach.

You obviously missed the bit where the OP said they do it for fun. Vile.

Go to London, go to Chichester, go to Portsmouth, go to Oxford, go to the Cotswolds. All within distance. If you travel abroad, you rarely stay in the same place unless it’s a resort.

We live in Chicago and visit family in the UK every other year and I agree it’s expensive but I prefer to have my own Airbnb base and have a car, I would go crazy if I had to stay with family and depend on them so much for 3 weeks.

We also go for 3 weeks, spend 2 weeks in the UK and a week in Europe so our child gets to visit Europe as well.

Other changes I made was the expectation that I have to go visiting everyone, I did that the first few trips and man was I exhausted by the end of the trip so now I let people know I’m staying and you can visit if you want to see us. Obviously we go and spend time with parents.

We quickly concluded that the visits to the UK were not vacation but to see family so the mindset change also helps, and we try to carve out a few days for us to do stuff around London and the UK while seeing family and friends.

If you plan ahead you get can good deals with Airbnb and car rentals.

Yep. I bet this has been a long 2 weeks for her too.

Perhaps the OP and/or her DH could have been added onto another family member's insurance if hiring a car is too expensive? If you can't afford to come back every year for a visit everyone enjoys then make it every other year. Maybe
MiL can contribute as she's unable to fly?

$600 for 1 night stay in York and train????
ATV’s, log cabins, how much further does your money go in the USA. I was under the impression not that far.
I get you may not want to come to England and can understand that but I think some of your explanations why you can’t do things is just a bit of a rant because you don’t want to be here.

Sorry that's bollocks, the USA will never have the incredible history and architecture that the UK has...

Exactly. Bet she can’t wait for the holiday to be over as well.

Quite.

Good grief OP, I drove from north Oxfordshire to mid-Warwickshire today and spent the whole time thinking how very beautiful it was. Aldershot is infamously grim but there are tons of gorgeous places within easy reach. I think your real problem is you resent spending a big chunk of your holiday with your in-laws, which is understandable.

I thought this too, so rude. How awful she has to suffer the appalling UK like the rest of us.

$600 for 1 night stay in York and train????

Easily, I'd say, @DonnaDonna0 . Have you seen train fares recently? Hampshire to York will be an arm and a leg. Then there's accommodation for four...

OP, do this every other year or every 18 months and do it properly. Hire a car and an airbnb, or make half of it a holiday somewhere with the family. You'll have more time to save up.

Doing it annually on the cheap (and relying on free accommodation and a taxi service from your SIL) is both unrewarding and unfair on your SIL

'Rural Maine looks quite pretty but it also looks dull AF (it was even named 2nd most boring state apparently)'

Yes I thought the op must've been from California or somewhere else exciting.

Op. You're visiting, here to see folk so kick that resentment to the side and slap a smile on your miserable face. Bet the inlaws cant wait til you go. Your poor dh and dc.

i agree England can be boring.

tell them you don’t like it and don’t come back for as long.

I'm keeping an eye open for the thread from SIL.

'In laws have descended on me for 13 days, have made no plans, expect me to drive them everywhere, sit around my living room being bored, do nothing to help in the house, and complain all the time. It's driving me crazy. AIBU?'

(With apologies OP if any of the above is inaccurate)

This seems to be 100% your fault for not planning properly. Your wilderness shooting holidays should have taught you this vital skill.

What’s costing $4K if you don’t pay for an airbnb or rental car? I know the area there is plenty to do with kids. Better planning next time!

I've lived in Maine too, although I was in a coastal region, and I consider us both to be amongst the fortunate. The state has its setbacks, particularly the long, hard winters; but also its compensations. Mainers are a specific breed, and a sheer delight to live among, and I completely 'get' what you're saying about the wildlife. To this day I miss the tremolo calls of the loons and the spooky sound of the great horned owls hooting in the woods.

Necessity compelled me to come back and if I'd not done so I'd not have met DH nor had our DC. But I loved our time there (and knowing then what I know now, might have considered a permanent move there more seriously).

The UK and US both have their positives and negatives. Both, IMO, are great countries and I'm not computing the PPs who take your unhappiness when visiting your country of origin as some kind of personal affront.

I love the UK too; it's home. But in hindsight, given the way life here has panned out, I'd go back tomorrow if I could.

Shooting wild animals. What fun.

I feel sorry for your MIL. She's probably been telling her friends how excited she is to have her family and grandkids visit, and here's you without a good word to say for her.

I think you should make this your last trip. Your in laws are probably glad to see the back of you, and will likely relish the idea of visits with dad and kids, sans moaning faced calamity jane.

Those voting YABU have clearly never been to Aldershot. It's a f-ing horrid place.

I live in Tongham and I'm not surprised you want to go home from Aldershot! It's so rough and just a disgusting dirty ghost town. It's nickname is Aldershit for a reason 😂 come to Tongham to the Hogs Back Brewery and get some lunch etc it's lovely this way x

Tongham has such a gorgeous little cemetery too. Farnham is lovely, but Aldershot is terrible.

Farnham - oh the horror. How did you cope?

Yes Farnham is beautiful and charming, but if she's trapped in Aldershot, that is a very different matter indeed. Aldershot is Hampshire, Farnham is in Surrey.

This!

The poor sil having to host this sour face. Can't afford rental so poor sil is taxi driver.

You are contributing towards food and petrol costs aren't you op?

Is MIL actually scared of flying or just wouldn't want to make the trip alone?