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.

Bless you , it’s not a nice area either . I would insist she would visit . Would she travel if one of you come and get her ?

I always think it's quite retro when I come across somebody smoking cigarettes. And I genuinely can't recall the last cigar smoker I saw 'in the wild'.

From Aldershot you can get a train to Woking, and then to the coast. Or a train to London. It can be as cheap/expensive as you make it.

If you’re restricted by time, Virginia Water isn’t far away, that’s a lovely place to walk for a few hours. And there’s plenty of local commons and canal walks.

Aldershot is never going to be the most exciting place to holiday, but there are many worse places you could be!!

What type of activities do you actually want, there’s plenty of things to do in the Surrey/Hampshire area

At least all the wildlife in Maine is getting a fortnight’s peace.

The OP sounds like hard work. I bet MIL and SIL are glad to see the back of you if all you do is slag off the UK.

I’m feeling very sorry for SiL who seems to be expected to look after you grumpy buggers and ferry you around

🙄

One of those crazy gun-nuts then. Shooting (animals presumably?) is really not an "important skill" or a "fun family hobby" you utter imbecile

Goodness, I am not familiar with the area but I am surprised to hear you are in England and there is nothing to do but walk up and down dead high streets. I'm from Ireland and always find lovely countryside in rural England and lots to do in the cities and towns in urban England with many pretty villages in-between. Are you trying to do fun things? There are normally lots of local attractions and you could travel a little for bigger touristy entertainment.

https://www.dayoutwiththekids.co.uk/things-to-do/south-east-and-london/hampshire/aldershot

This is a list of some of the best things to do in Aldershot.

You could also go to London which I believe has one or two things to do.

Shame there are no trains, coaches, car hire places or buses near Aldershot.

Can’t you let your DH take the kids to visit his mum and you go somewhere nice in Europe instead? I refuse to spend time in England any more; nothing wrong with the place, I lived there very happily for years, but there are lots of other places I would prefer to be if I am spending thousands of dollars on a flight and my family don’t live there. English friends who want to see me are happy to get on a Eurostar and we meet in Paris, luckily they are all SE so it’s not a big deal.

Staying two weeks in someone else's home is my idea of hell, even if it is a lovely place. I would not feel able to relax. As US annual leave allocations are so stingy I would absolutely not be spending the bulk of mine making costly duty visits every year. Tell MIL to see about some good hypnotherapy to get her over flight anxiety then she can visit you (preferably you would not need to be on annual leave for her entire visit!). I know a couple of people who had great results using this. Even if you were paying for her flight would be much cheaper than flying your family to UK.
If she is not willing to find some means of dealing with her fear of flying I would be making visits biannual or even triannual. Tell her you can’t afford it. She could attempt guilt tripping from 3000 miles away if she liked, she can’t argue about the expense if that’s one of her reasons for not coming to you.

Surely it would be worth hiring a car while you are here? There are plenty if nice places within easy reach of Aldershot and even using public transport you could get somewhere half decent.

No wonder you’re finding England boring when your idea of a ‘fun family hobby’ is shooting animals. Fml. Sorry for the lack of fellow psychopaths of your trip.

I don’t have any ethical issues with shooting animals for food as long as the whole setup meets proper environmental standards. I do think the OP is on the wrong holiday. She should arrange to meet MIL in a countryside place where there are outdoor things to do (maybe not shooting!? But other things like walks, geocaching, boating etc.) and hire a car. And she needs to have some hard conversations with MIL about costs and fairness. Perhaps MIL could get something prescribed to help her relax on the plane. If not, the OP could point out how expensive the UK is, and suggest that her family comes once every two years only - so that there is actually a bit of a budget for spending. Coming on holiday with no money to spend is shit.

Exactly how fragile do you have to be that a town centre having a main road or three running through it causes you emotional trauma? You'd think someone who shoots and kills wild animals for fun would be a bit more resilient than that.

As for Aldershot, it's always been a bit rough round the edges - lived in the area for eleven years (or rather I passed through there every now and again between a series of foreign holidays) so I speak from experience. Did the B&H Bandits keep OP permanently obscured by a smokescreen though? No, I think it's just more schimfing.

I have a plan though, I'm going to Canada.. been there six times too. Wanna talk about a place where's really nothing to do? Visit Suffield. The Sin Bin in Medicine Hat on the other hand.. I digress. I'm going there to be a wildlife activist, on behalf of all the animals that OP and their poor, poor immediate family kill for fun - which is ironic for someone who claims to "miss wildlife".. Sure, it takes a bit of skill and practice to become proficient with a rifle but it can't take that much skill to hit a living thing that isn't actively trying to do the same thing to you.

So yeah, wildlife activist, I'm heading back to The Big Country. Every time I see a mother grisly bear protecting her newborns and trying to fatten them up so they don't die in their first hibernation, powerful proud bull moose, beautiful reindeer with enormous antlers, every bobcat, lynx, and puma, every majestic wolf, all the skittish does, deer, and fawns.. every time I see one I'm going to the exact same thing:

Walk right up to it and give them 20 John Player Special and a box of Swan Vestas... "mate, listen, if you ever hear the voice of a failed Englishperson schimfing how the rain is coming down in the wrong flavour, or there are too many trees in the forest, just shove one of these in your cakehole and spark it up - you're the only living thing on Earth that can extend it's life by having a fag!!

@Frogpole what's schimfing? That's a new one on me.

Good luck in Canada 👏

Not me! Hampshire is beautiful, I think another poster said that!

Oh I see. It’s a shit holiday because there is no wildlife to kill.

And to add to this Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, the lovely playground in St James’s Park or even a walk over to Kensington to go to the Diana Memorial playground.
Loads of free museums - Science and Natural History which the kids will love.
Cant believe you on staying in a place with direct trains into Waterloo and you havent travelled in!

Now I'm curious about which part of Victoria! (I live in Geelong, a very mixed bag, like most cities.)

We left the UK in 2009 with our infants and I managed not to go back for a visit until 2014. We kept it going for a couple of years and then stopped after 2017. It is just so expensive and repetitive (and very boring), tiring and people expect you to travel great distances to do what they want, rather than what interested you, which means there's very little variation for you and the kids from trip to trip. All I can suggest is that you need to draw a line in the sand somehow. I found when the kids started getting older, having commitments like summer camps and learning experiences took priority. If your MIL makes a fuss, it's for your DH to manage. There are so many other places to visit.

Now I'm curious about which part of Victoria! (I live in Geelong, a very mixed bag, like most cities)

Me too! Churchill? Colac?

I’m Ballarat! But love Geelong 😊

I'm in a SE Melbourne suburb.

I used to visit Ballarat every year! I was on first-name terms with the staff at Sovereign Hill. 😄

I don't know if I'd visit Geelong again - the city centre is not in a good way - but I definitely like living here.