Should kids go on holiday abroad every year?

[TillyTooms]

To grow up well rounded or is it just a nice luxury to have?

Before having kids I imagined we'd be jetting off every year like I did pre kids however having a neurodivergent child has meant I'm not able to work as much as I could previously and our income has seen a reduction.

We have a comfortable income and can do days out and pay for my daughter's hobbies but not enough to jet away every year.

I know this sounds like a stupid question but I just feel like I've let them down somehow.

Interail passes are cheap and include both journey to St Pancras and the eurostar. €500 for 2 adults ( under 11s are free) that's cheaper than some UK breaks.

Here

When I ask my DC about their best holiday ever, they answer the summer when their friends came to ours every day and I took them to the "dinosaur park" with said friends. It was literally friends arriving, a bit of play at home, then we packed a picnic and off to the park!
They were in primary school and I agree, they had a ball!
(I was made redundant and offered a bit of childcare during the summer holidays for DC's best friends!)
As teenagers it's the one where we went abroad to a theme park... because they didn't have the long queues.
2nd & 3rd are always varios camping trips with amazing swimming pools and a hiking trip where Dad got lost, then all the fancy & cultural stuff like a city break in Rome...
🤦🏻‍♀️

So yes, take it from me its a luxury and DC are really not that bothered about where they have all the fun experiences during their long school holidays!

There’s a lot of black and white thinking on this thread. Not all holidays are pointless, only staying in a resort and gaining no cultural experience (which anyway has its own benefit). Not all cultural experiences are going to create super well rounded individuals. Not all intelligent and well rounded people have been abroad. Going abroad for arseholes won’t make them wonderful and caring. Two weeks in Spain will not make your child bilingual, nobody’s saying that. Surely it’s a two-pronged bit of reasoning; can you afford it, and is it something you want to do?

Travel is a massive luxury, yes. Doesn’t mean there’s no benefit to anyone in doing it. If you can’t afford it, but want to, that’s not great. If you have no interest in travel, that’s fine too! I don’t get the hate for travel for people who can and want to do it. People who travel a fair bit, speaking for myself, are not then going without trips to museums or other extra curricular experiences - it’s not necessarily one or another.

I have been on lots of trips with my kids. We plan and get involved in local culture, learn a few words, look up the stems of the language and way people communicate. What’s considered rude/polite and why? How did their cuisine develop (me and my kids eat more than chips)? We relax, switch off from work and school and immerse ourselves in another world - whilst yes also lolling about round the pool and eating ice cream. I don’t think my kids would be ruined by not doing any of this, but we have a brilliant time, and we do engage with the customs of wherever we are. Why does it have to be a waste of time just because it’s not a priority for some people? Many people can afford it, but choose not to do it. Some people can’t afford to do it, but equally don’t want to go abroad anyway.

My kids are ND and get a lot out of being away. Some will hugely struggle and cope better at home. It’s like arguing over what someone’s favourite dinner is. Everyone’s got individual preferences and budgets.

In answer to the original question, travel IS a luxury, of course. Does it make people more well rounded? No. Being well rounded takes a lot more than going on holiday. My kids travel a lot and are well rounded, but we have a house full of books, watch a lot of documentaries, they do a lot of free after school stuff and we go to free museums and galleries. I’ve also been open with them about life and people and the world around them. I’ve removed toxic people and situations from their lives, engage in their education. Travel is just a (for me) fun add on.

Not at all. Just thinking of my own childhood, when I didn’t leave the UK (bar one day trip to Boulogne on the hovercraft) until I was 13; and then the joy I had cycling round Europe by bike, or bus-packing through North Africa when older.

You haven’t really demonstrated the argument that travel opens your mind to other people’s viewpoints, there.

This is an interesting take on the subject, but I wonder whether the age of corporate globetrotting isn’t coming to an end, due to political and environmental reasons.

Also I don't think a top job in an International Company is necessarily evidence of being well rounded. Two different things.

Totally a luxury.

You seem to have the opinion that if you’ve visited a country once as a child, you’ve done it and there’s no point going back again… so I think you might be the one that doesn’t have a very worldly view.

"Should" no of course not, nice to have and a priority for us absolutely, one of the (many, to be fair) reasons we stopped at 2 children was because holidays abroad are important for us and we'd have been much more restricted with 3.

But to add that's more for DH and I, not the kids. They talk about Isle of Wight and Florida in the same breath, but DH and I much prefer our more extravagant holidays!

I never went on holiday as a child except on the ferry to Ireland to visit family. I first went on a plane a month before my 20th birthday!
I went on to travel quite a bit in my 20s. That's the time to do it, I don't think little kids get much out of travelling and it must be a pain in the arse for parents! My cousins are lucky enough to travel to their holiday homes and to luxury resorts but I'm not envious. They do invite me sometimes. Not like I can afford even the plane fare, lol. But I think kids under about 7 probably don't need to travel too far.

I grew up in poverty and did not have a holiday until my 20s.

What a child needs is loving, supportive parents, I think this is what makes well rounded children.

My DC are lucky enough to have more of privileged upbringing (nowhere near as much as some posters on MN) but I also provide them with museum visits, reading books etc, watching documentaries and just general learning, which I think helps as a holistic approach.

Of course your family holidays abroad were some of your best childhood memories - but if your family hadn't been able to take you abroad, then your best childhood memories would have been your childhood visits to Wales/Norfolk or wherever.

It must be obvious to you that there are many people who cannot afford a holiday at the moment - many can't even afford the caravan in Brean without taking their children out of school (or even at all).

And there are some children who will struggle with the whole experience of travelling and being out of their routine.

So I'm sure you can see why parents may not be taking their children abroad.

We can’t even afford a UK holiday this years. I don’t feel my son will be less well-rounded because of it.

I feel so sad that so many people posting on Mumsnet (I have seen it on other threads too) seem to know nothing about the beauties of the UK. We had no money for foreign travel when I was growing up back in the Pleistocene, but I was introduced to lovely (if on occasion chilly) beaches in Dorset and Devon and Yorkshire and Norfolk, saw the great cathedrals of York and Lincoln and Wells and Norwich, walked in the Lake District and the Peak District, and yes (runs for cover) was even taken to some gorgeous stately homes. From a very young age too. You are not raising a Deprived Child if you can't afford a holiday abroad.

@Neurodiversitydoctor
I think @Misthios comment about 'if you live in the SE corner of England maybe' was to do with the ease of travel if you were going on Eurostar or a ferry, rather than the price. If you live in the north of England, Scotland or West Wales it's a very long journey to get to that point.

While the passes are v reasonable when I started checking routes the reservation fees did jump up the pricing significantly. Next time OH and I can get 2 weeks off together in the summer we would like to do this though .

Unless we are talking going to Vietnam or Namibia or Belize or similar, to truly experience different cultures and approaches to life, pool-side holidays do very little for "rounding up".

My son is four and has never been on holiday, let alone a holiday abroad. I am a disabled single parent and quite honestly don’t think I can ever afford a holiday - so saying about a holiday abroad each year is barbaric and quite degrading to people like me.

I grew up in a large family and we only ever went on holiday abroad twice but most years went on a seaside caravan holiday in the summer. These were so much more enjoyable than abroad holidays personally.

Total luxury. Definitely not required to have a rounded upbringing.

An overseas holiday doesn't equal a rounded upbringing.
We didn't have foreign holidays as kids.
And I can count on one hand the times I've flown in the last 10 years.
BUT we did travel all around the UK on fairly cheap family holidays.
Yes, I'd love to have done more, but my holidays in UK were irreplaceable.

We had planned to do entirely domestic holidays until they were about 8 or 9 and able to be less than feral on a plane. There are so many amazing places to visit in the UK.

Holidays can be lovely for children, but they aren’t necessary- especially not abroad.

I gave my ds10 a choice of a holiday abroad this year or a short break in the uk to a place we have been 4 times before and is only 2 hours from home- and he chose the uk immediately (and he has done the foreign holiday thing so he does know what he’s choosing between).

I would suggest that there are plenty of holidays you could have in the UK that create a well rounded person. Certainly more than spending a week or two in a holiday resort where almost no person from these shores makes any attempt to speak the local language or adapt their behaviour to local customs.