Do you ever feel your holidays are ‘boring’?

[pumpumpumpkin]

Yes we go to far flung places but that’s because for a beach holiday or island hopping, it’s easy to arrange yourself.

When it comes to adventurous holidays like visiting a rainforest or a safari or travelling around Peru, they’re very very expensive as you need to pay someone to arrange or anything comfortable is super expensive.

I’d much prefer to do a tour of Burma or Botswana, but the costs are easily £5k+ a head.

If I sort my own flights and villa I can do two weeks on a remote tropical island for £2000 a head (Fiji) if I self book.

So we travel a lot, but feel like our holidays are quite boring?

We go camping in France every year- never boring! Move from site to site, finding amazing rivers and beaches. I think a week in one hotel in one place would be really boring unless a city break.

Adventure - define
Visiting a remote place ? Take a walk in Northumberland national park
Challenging? Take a walk in knoydart
Seeing something new and different - can be anywhere - walk around Perth and discover the railway bridge , follow a random brown tourist sign and find a Pictish standing stone

I think it’s time consuming, but very possible to book more adventurous holidays yourself. I’ve been to Burma, Nepal, Cambodia, Tibet, South Korea, Japan, Laos..etc and booked everything myself. I use Lonely Planet and websites like Selective Asia and then adapt the itineraries they list.

Also if you enjoy your holiday, it’s not boring regardless of destination/activity.

What would you like to be doing on your holidays? Writing, yoga, beach (still find it funny that Ken's job is 'beach')?

I wouldn't want to travel a very long way away to sit on a beach but then I'm not a beach person as I go bright red and get too hot. I do like reading though, so if there's a cafe, somewhere interesting to go once a day (like museum or interesting gallery) or just to eat out, that would be better.

I don't really enjoy holidays that much myself, but I realise that's a me problem. I don't want to dash around doing adventurous watersports either. I think you need to spend some time thinking about what you do like to do, what would be a change from everyday life, what others need on the holiday and then put together some ideas. Why not go on an organized tour somewhere nearer like down the Rhine or something if you don't have the money for a tour of somewhere far-flung?

We're looking at booking 2 weeks in Thailand next year, 3 locations all 5 star hotels for around £2500 per person. Doesn't seem too boring to me .

Oh and last year amongst other trips we had a long weekend in Porto fairly cheaply and a 10 day trip to Jersey and France ( weather could have been better).
There's lots of places to go and things to do that don't cost megabucks.

Ha same @rookiemere in fact booked the same recently! What 3 places are you visiting?

OP I wouldn’t say your holidays are boring, what are your aims for when you go to these various places?

You really don’t need to pay someone to arrange it all. I used to do all sorts of backpacking/flashpacking trips in remote countries and booked everything myself. Even easier these days now everyone has a website and I travel with a smartphone.

Paying someone to arrange it saves time but adds money.

We used to organise most of our holidays ourselves pre-covid, but lost a lot of money in 2020 & now only use companies bound by the package tour regulations.
We recently returned from a tour that involved 9 flights & 9 hotels, plus many excursions. I would not want to organise that myself, & indeed the tour operator cocked up with a flight.

Phuket, Krabi and Ko Samet. You ?

I find beach holidays quite boring tbh, so we don't really do them. I think it's possible to plan stuff yourself if you're inclined to do so.

Fair point Georgy I had forgotten about ATOL.

I’d be beyond irritated if I’d paid £££ for a tour operator to organise and then they’d messed up a flight! I think I’m too fussy, I always think I can find better accommodation/excursions etc myself. (Not necessarily true).

I am never bored on holiday.
I pick the destination myself.
I plan the holiday myself.
I get to experience a new city, or a new place.
Not boring!

(I cannot afford two weeks on a remote tropical island, so I don't know anything about that kind of holiday.)

@rookiemere Bangkok, Chiangmai and Koh Samui - really enjoyed Phuket and Krabi is beautiful! Enjoy 😊😊

No, I never find my holidays boring! To be honest, I'd find your holidays boring (sorry) and I wouldn't travel all that way for a beach holiday. Actually, I wouldn't travel anywhere for a beach holiday . Fine, some people like them, but it sounds like you don't? Time for a change then!

Any beach holiday is boring for me as I only like an hour on one. If I go somewhere like that I like to be in the shade having a nice lunch or reading. I love a city break for a few nights more than a two week beach holiday. In the last 18 months I have been a way for a total of 14 nights but been to NYC, Dublin, Barcelona, North East Yorkshire coast and Dorset.
Kids are adults now but when they were young we did lots of U.K. hols and French campsites plus a few In Menorca/ Portugal but wouldn’t do that now.

I'm never bored on holiday, so if you are, either the destination or the itinerary (or both) doesn't suit you. We all want or would like different things from our holiday breaks. For me, long haul is out. Been there done that and at this stage of my life I find max four hour flights are just about as much as I can take!

I like a mix of activity and rest. So I usually choose an interesting European city/area (not beach, not for me), and combine a look around the city or area with an opportunity to rest and read. A good hotel or apartment with a balcony/terrace is a must for the R+R bit, so I'm prepared to pay a bit extra for that.

However, I am fascinated at the far flung destinations mentioned so far. The furthest I got was to Beijing, Shanghai and Xian, but I was much younger then. Could not face such a long flight now! Glad I did all my long hauls already so.

We are off to Sri Lanka this summer
With kids in tow. Organised it all ourselves through internet research. We will
Travel the whole country. Most rooms are £30 per night for all four of us. Hired a driver for the three weeks for far less than the cost of car hire in the EU. All in with flights, accommodation and transport it is not much more expensive than two weeks package holiday to Spain. Yes you have to read, research and get planing. But that is fun and you and your kids get to experience so much.

There's loads of places to visit in Europe as well that would be adventurous but cheap flights keep the cost down. Fly to Rome and then get the train to the Amalfi Coast or Venice, hire a car and do a road trip around Sicilia or Andalucia or Germany. We've had lots of successful holidays booking flights and hotels independently, it just takes more research.

Pre covid I used to book it all myself. If I had the time I’d do it again too.

Beach in the Med or Oz, to me is just a beach. Variety is what makes my holidays. I find trip adviser and lonely planet a good resource.

Sitting on a beach/pool all holiday is not my idea of fun, so don't do this type of holiday as I had to endure it when DC were v little. Now they are a bit older we discuss ideas of what we would each like to visit/do from a potential route and I organise it.

I book flights and hotel separately now. I use trivago/booking.com/ Expedia.

When it comes to adventurous holidays like visiting a rainforest or a safari or travelling around Peru, they’re very very expensive as you need to pay someone to arrange or anything comfortable is super expensive.

I've done all this and never paid anyone to arrange it for me! Most of it was in my 20's when my husband and I had a lot less money so we never spent massively. You sound like you're well capable of booking any of these yourself OP, just do some research and start planning your itinerary and you'll see how quickly it all starts coming together!

My favourite holiday ever was a roadtrip to South Africa, we road tripped from Cape Town to Johannesburg crossing through Swaziland. We paraglided off a mountain, swam in the sea with seals, saw penguins on the beaches, cage dived with sharks, did self drive safaris driving alongside lions and elephants in our little Volvo, saw hippos wander in to town at night, hiked alongside zebras.... We spent a few days staying in a traditional beehive hut in a nature reserve in Swaziland (called Eswatini these days) which was incredible, loads of non aggressive animals like warthogs and zebra grazing on the grass in front of our front door.

Too much to list really but that was very easy to plan, we just booked flights in to Cape Town and out of Johannesburg and then worked out the route we wanted to take involving as many activities and beauty spots as possible.