ok expats - tell me about holidays

[meowmix]

9 months into first year of expat-dom and suddenly realise that all my holiday time this year is going to be spent back in the UK trotting around relatives houses. Is this just the way it goes for expats?

yes

get over it

{so much easier said than done }

I live in Cyprus (we're here for a couple of years with the military) and yes that pretty much cums up my holiday experience so far!!!

I don't mind going back to the UK especially for things for the children but if I go back on my own with the children it rarely feels like a holiday!

I think this summer we are going to make sure we get some "local leave"

"cums up"

Madame! I say!

Whoops! sums up!

heavens you cypriots are RUDE....

I'm sure moving out here was an opp to travel and not just back to the uk. I'm sure it said that on the packet.

well it can be done, we are deffo going to LA, Miami and Mexico next year, tagging along with DH's work, so we can tell The Family et al that it's a work thing blah blah blah but if we were to go anywhere else, even over to Queensland or SE Asia - kind of local - then we may have to keep shtum about it. People back "home" can get a bit disgruntled if they cotton on that you are using your airmiles to go elsewhere.

within 3 -4 hours of here: seychelles, goa, sri lanka, oman, jordan, egypt, morocco, beirut, tunisia, turkey, athens, maldives, madagascar, 5-7 hrs thailand, malaysia, vietnam, beijing....

and where are we going? stockport. I mean ...really. Its a very poor effort.

SNORT!

where precisely are you?

Yup, that's the way it is, Meowmix. I should be packing right now, not MNing, in order to get our flight back to sunny Scotland tonight. I can't see any way round it, tbh, when we have elderly mums in the UK and offspring scattered around the place.

We are having a week away over Easter and we went to the US last summer but it was at the cost of not seeing family. What really bugs me is that I make the effort to go and see my mum yet none of my UK-based three siblings have seen her for four years.

yep.

actually we did spend a weekend in Marbella the other week which was fun.

kama, have you asked yiour children if they would rather "see the world" or see more of granny and grandad?

It also depends how you rate holidays. I've been a bit of a home bird in the past and it's only lately I've really wanted to branch out.

Another factor is whether family can visit you abroad or holiday with you. We had planned to go to South Africa this Easter but because our ds1 and dd2's uni breaks don't coincide, it proved impossible to do. I couldn't countenance not seeing my children so home we go. (But not if I don't get off this PC!!!! )

we're in qatar so hardly a tourist destination (put it this way I doubt we'll get repeat visitors unless they love dust)

It was a serious question actually - because you said that each family needs to make the decision and yet I can't imagine any well-balanced child choosing to travel rather than see granny. Even at 2.

Depending how many days holiday you get, I would personally try and balance it. Spend one break in a country near where you are now, have a proper holiday. Spend the Christmas holiday (if you get one in Qatar) or another break with your family.

no Christmas here I'm afraid. We get 3 days at end of Ramadan (prob oct this year) and 3 for Eid al Adha (I assume early Jan).

its a cost thing too - flights to the UK are not cheap. so can't really do 2 trips home and a holiday. I'm going to have to get cannier about my bolting holiday time onto business trips I think (ho, here comes a life of weekends in Dubai and Kuwait!)

I think you should try and see some of the countries near where you are based now. Many of them sound interesting to me. I lived in Morocco for a while and it's a nice country to visit with a child.

I love visiting countries I haven't been to before, so I would find it very hard to be based in Qatar and yet only spend my holidays in the UK. I know you have family to consider too though.

How is the job? How are you settling in?

Job is manic, tough, challenging, exhausting. I love it. In fact I love Qatar, its a bit of a dump in someways but there is such a sense of possibility here.

For work I've seen Bahrain, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait and hope to get to Jordan and Beirut in the next few months (Beirut sounds mad but its meant to be beautiful). Would love love to go to Iran but.... can't see that happening just yet.

I feel the same - have to see this area while I can. Imagine seeing the turtles hatch on Omani beaches, or the sun rise over Petra....and then imagine the stockport viaduct. Hmm....!

Oh you've been around a fair bit so far. Sounds excellent. You definitely have to see Petra if you can.

Is Beirut beautiful? I know it was described as the Paris of the East and so on but that was before the civil war. I think the centre was badly destroyed but I don't know much about Lebanese history TBH. Still definitely worth a visit. All sounds very exciting.

No.

I don't go back to the US.

My family there is FAR better off than I am or ever will be financially, and retired or with older children who think jet lag is cool.

So they come over here and then we go somewhere cool.

This year, it's a self-catering cottage outside Nairn.

Next year, we'll all be meeting in Ireland, which is not too hard or expensive for us to get to with two young children.