Granted, it’s never been cheaper to go abroad. And, sometimes, go abroad you
must - it wouldn’t do at all to become all weird and insular and turn into
one of those people, like a sometime relative, who once literally wept with
disgust at the idea that people might want to go to horrid fancy foreign
France in the summer when the bounty of 1970s Britain was on their own
doorstep.
Nevertheless, I have become quite passionate about holidaying in the UK. To be
honest, this doesn’t really have as much to do with my concerns about my
family’s carbon footprint as with expense and convenience.
If you’re a single person with a decent income, or a couple, the world is your
oyster and travelling is usually straightforward and manageable.
If you have small children in tow, though (to say nothing of a neurotic dog
that needs parking somewhere), the whole thing can quickly become a
particularly stressful way of leaching money. To make matters worse, you
sometimes get the sinking feeling that the fun doesn’t seem worth the cost.
The problem is partly that an adult’s idea of a blissful holiday abroad seldom
coincides with a child’s. Say that I want to lounge scenically around
Tuscany (just to be especially clichédly middle-class about it). I rent, at
vast expense, a villa to lounge in. It’s really nice for me - I like the
food, I love the heat, I like Giotto, I love churches, I speak Italian, I
like swimming and lying in the sun, and not having a telly is my idea of
heaven.
For my children, only two of those pronouncements are true - those concerning
food and swimming. The rest bores them to tears. And, as I have discovered
over the years, there’s only so much swimming you can reasonably expect a
child to do in a fortnight. The pool is enormously exciting for the first
three days, after which you find children in various stages of mild
disenchantment (which immediately puts you in a filthy mood - what kind of
hideous brats have you raised that they turn their noses up at pools and
olive groves?).
Why don’t you go for a swim, you say, slightly aggressively. I swam all
morning, they say, and now there’s nothing to do. Go for a walk. No, it’s
too hot. Also, I’m 15. I don’t want to walk through the countryside looking
at flippin’ trees. Well, do something, you roar. We haven’t come all the way
out here and practically bankrupted ourselves for you to lie around like a
slob.
And no, you can’t play Game Boy. You play Game Boy in London. We are on
holiday. It is special.
Meanwhile, the baby has got a rash and you’re wondering if she has heatstroke,
despite spending the day unhappily smothered in a thick coating of factor 50
(she’s fractious anyway, because she didn’t sleep last night, because it was
too hot), and the middle one’s been stung by one of the many wasps that
congregate at mealtimes in the charming outdoor loggia. Never mind, you
explain, because this afternoon we’re all going to climb a clock tower.
We’ll have an amazing view of the whole of Siena. And later I’m going to
drag you all around town, in the broiling heat, until we find a church I
went to when I was 12, which contains an especially interesting relic. It’ll
be such fun!
Or not. Deciding to give British holidays a whirl was the best decision I ever
made. It saved me thousands of pounds, but even more important, it provided
us with holidays we could all enjoy. Nobody has to be at Heathrow at an
ungodly hour, in horrible crowds, to find delays and disgusting breakfasts
that cost a tenner a head and are swimming in grease. Nobody screams
throughout the flight because their ears aren’t popping. Nobody has
difficulty finding the car-hire place, then gets lost for four hours finding
the villa. And that’s just for starters.
Instead, you just get in your car and go. You stop off at a nice
family-friendly pub for lunch. You take your time. You arrive, and
everything’s exciting but not too unfamiliar. The sea is turquoise. The sun
is shining - and if not, it will at some point. The beach is huge and
pristine.
The fish tastes as if it walked out of the sea 10 minutes beforehand and the
chips are crispy. The children aren’t forced to bob about in a pool for a
fortnight: they can bodyboard, they can surf, they can fish, they can go on
boat trips, they can look for seals, they can go crabbing. The big ones can
go off by themselves and explore the nearest town, the little ones can check
out the rock pools. In the evenings, the big ones can hang out with other
teenagers while you put the baby to bed, pour yourself a glass of wine and
admire the sunset. It is bliss.
I really agree with your views and although we are not British, we have lived here for a very long time and both our kids were born here. Britain is a beautiful country and there is always something to do in any weather. This summer we went as far as the Isle of Purbeck and had a fab time!
paula tome, london, uk
I agree with you completely on the issue of location versus appearance. We've just spent a week in an ugly flat overlooking the sea at Porthtowan, Cornwall. The facilities were adequate, the decor poor, but it was out of the front door and onto the beach. Kept my 6 year old happy all week!
Jo Goff, Bethnal Green, England
At last: some holiday tips for a normal family on a low budget - thanks! We've discovered another brilliant holiday idea: city centre holidays using family rooms in Travelodges on saver rates: currently they're on offer at £9 and £19 a night! Kids adore these holidays and its low maintenance for us
Chris Thomas, Oxford, England