[Closed] Holidays you remember fondly

We used to go away in our caravan all the time when I was a kid - my parents were both in education so we had plenty of time. So for me, time not in school was usually spent out and about in Wales or somewhere. From I think 10 onwards we spent our summers in France in such a huge variety of locations that even now when I travel there I keep coming across places I recognise. When I worked in Germany in 2011 we drove through France, stopped at a campsite and after we got on-site I realised I'd stayed there before. When we drove back, we picked a convenient looking town with a camping municipal and yep, stayed there too!

We spent our time chilling out, going to beaches, exploring, eating cheese, drinking wine catching rays, you know.... It was great.

However when I was a little older, 15-16, we went back a couple of times to a place I'd been on a school-organised climbing trip called Pralognan-la-Vanoise. That's where I'd like to go again.

My uncle's caravan with Cousins and friends. Margate beach, arcades, transport cafes, Minnis Bay Olympics. The BEST of times.

Camping in the Lakes with Mum & Dad when I was a kid. Not just holidays but weekends as well. Best times ever.

Our family holidays were always two weeks spent camping in the north of Scotland. Beaches, forests, quiet roads. Playing out until almost midnight on those long summer evenings.  Some of the places we'd stop weren't official campsites. Nowadays you'd call it wild camping but it was just a thing back then. I found out many years later than some of the sites were originally used by the tinkers/travellers and were part of a tradition gong back centuries.

In the evening my dad would take my brother and I for a walk while my mum got the tent organised for bed. Those evening walks, finding wildlife, smelling the trees and listening to the water are what would later develop into my current love for being outdoors.

As a kid, we went to Woolacombe the first week of the 1976 heatwave - first proper holiday away with my parents. Stayed in some weird self catering unit, mum and dad had a bed that folded down out the wall into the living room.

1980 we celebrated my dad leaving the RAF by them taking me to Kenya, where I was born when he was stationed out there. A week on safari and a week in Mombasa. It must have cost a fortune, but saw so much wildlife up close, and at a time when you could walk around Nairobi and Mombasa without any security worries.

They were the only family holidays we had - after that, I got to go on plenty of Scout camps and school trips, parents had an annual holiday while I was looked after by my grandparents

I usually spent holidays on my grandparents farm, i thought the things i did there were normal, as basically all my friends did the same things.
It’s only now that I realise i was actually quite lucky.
I could handle a crash gearbox by the time i was 12, and was proficient in reversing a trailer before that, skills i still occasionally use.
I also have a practical ‘get on with it’ attitude to problems.
I didn’t go abroad until i was in my early 40s, but I’ve loved going to canada, skated on the worlds largest naturally frozen ice rink, worn a kilt in -34c, ab fab.
What an amazing world it is.

Remember being about 9rs old, camping and eel-fishing by full moonlight on the Somerset Levels. We nailed the eel’s head to a fencepost and then cut and skinned it like a roll-neck. Sliced it up fresh and poached it in milk and butter on a Blue Camping Gaz cooker as the morning sky was beginning to lighten. I remember my father telling me how the eels would transition from one waterway to another across the grass in the dew, and how they could find their way from across the Atlantic to a little river in England. I remember hearing owls call across the meadows. It was all very magical and hyper-real.

I was very fortunate as a child and taken to some amazing places around the world, but by far, my best holidays were in a tent at St Andries Bay in Taunton. We went there year after year and those memories are priceless.

Pembrokeshire beach holidays as a kid.

Broad Haven Beach at Bosherton. Still my favourite place in the world.

As a kid ( with parents who were teachers) we would spend a month every summer in the dormobile and later by car camping. alternate years in Scotland or in mainland europe.

I became a francophile as a result and some songs still take me back to great endless holidays in France camping

The other memory from childhood is my first visit to Durness. a place I love deeply.

As an adult either the year we walked across scotland or the year we toured the Hebrides by bike

[boring post]
I think as a general rule, the majority of holidays as a kid WERE magical - we used to have a week at Butlins when I was pre-teen, then a week in the same house on the west coast of Wales through until I was well into my early twenties. By then it may have become slightly tarnished, but it was still THE place to relax - solely the simplest of pleasures, many, many happy memories... 🙂 [boring post]

As an adult, we went to Japan a couple of years back, and that was utterly fantastic - beautiful country, great people, and the very depth of the culture clash marked it as something special. I'm sure we'll not afford it again, but it was worth every penny.

That’s a lovely post, scotroutes.

Saunton Sands, 1976, A 5 mile beach, sand dunes, surf, and Tessa, a ballerina from Walton on Thames...
Sob.....

No-one has mentioned Disneyland or luxury beach resort holidays yet... Parents take note.

My mum took me and my best friend for a week in Cornwall. 13 years old I reckon and skateboarding was our religion. Sun, skateboarding and sea. Amazing.

It wasn't like these days in the late eighties, where there are skateparks in virtually every town (and this were all fields). What we found were little gems. A mecca for two boys from the Midlands. A concrete park somewhere with loads of carving lines and a 'secret' halfpipe in a farmers barn near Crantock bay. Magical, exciting times for us.

Also, we made my mum listen to an ever revolving cassette tape of Run DMC for the entire week in the car 😂

We stayed in some hotel and at home weeks later, the kid we met in the hotel was on Wacaday! 😂

Touring Provencal climbing crags with the missus for three weeks. Dry, warm rock, cold beer and delicious red wine. Watched France win the world cup in a tiny bar, which was lively. 🙂

For several years in the early '70s, we had a VW Dormobile camper (DNN676C, allegedly it still exists, albeit SORNed) and went all over Wales and The Lakes in it. Mostly at a very steady pace, as I have no recollection of it being capable of 70mph, even downhill on the motorway with a following wind. Black Rock Sands, Harlech, Shell Island, Pembrokeshire, Saundersfoot/Tenby, Langdale, Wasdale amongst others. I don't recall ever getting to Scotland in it, but over several years it gave Dad the chance to get us into hillwalking & climbing in Wales, which has grown since into a lifelong love of that and the Munros. So - not a specific holiday or trip as such, but more a recollection of a means to an end for most of the family. I have to say that my Mum doesn't recall the van with quite such rose-tinted spectacles, as she was the one often left doing the domestic side of things, and trying to stop the rest of us turning it into a complete tip.

All my favorites involve France.

My folks were teachers and my dad was scared of flying so every summer holiday for us was 4 - 6 weeks driving/camping in France, Eurocamp style. No specific memories, I think all those holidays have merged into one pleasant memory, but like molgrips trips through France in later years have triggered great recollections.

Aged 15 or 16 I went on a school trip to France (camping) doing adventure stuff like rafting down the Ardeche - a massive storm rolled in and I can still feel the thunder reverberating off the cliffs of the gorge. Then we had to scramble back up to the vans, carrying the rafts, in torrential rain. We had a CD player and two CDs - a Roy Chubby Brown gig (it was the 90's, we were young and stupid, and there was loads of swearing so we thought it was cool...) and Blood Sugar Sex Magik, which we must have played ten times a day. And sneaking off to buy beers, thinking we were dead grown up...

And not so much a holiday but my third year at uni was a work placement and I ended up at Airbus in Toulouse. Living in a shared flat overlooking the river with a bunch of other stagiaires, directly opposite our local bar - we could give them a wave from our balcony a few minutes before we headed down and they'd have the beers poured by the time we arrived. Day trips down to the Pyrenees for a bit of snowboarding. Nipping across the border for the Fiesta San Fermin in Pamplona. Our second local bar (despite being on they other side of town) was the Frog & Rosbif, my first experience of a micro-brewery. Played endless hours of killer there (darts) and we even had our own theme tune (the A-Team) that they played whenever we arrived. Playing cricket and petanque at the park by the river. Falling head over heels for a young lady who conveniently lived in the flat below mine probably helped with the fond memories of that year too 😁. Working at Airbus was cool, even though we were getting paid the equivalent of about a tenner a day. Wangling excuses to pop over to the factory to see planes being built. Touring mockups of a new plane called the A3XX, later launched as the A380. The whole year was a big crazy holiday, endless happy memories.

Like the poster above, France featured heavily in my childhood.
Standouts for me were kayaking down the Ardeche and a wonderful campsite at the base of Alpe D'Huez. The latter really cemented me as a cyclist.
Closer to home, we spent a lot of time in a caravan at the Forest of Dean and I have great memories of cycling the forest and the views from Symonds Yat.

We travelled from North Yorkshire to Porth beach in Newquay every year from when I was about 6 until about 12 and stayed in the 'Mermaid' apartments right on the beach - we just spent every day on the beach surfing and skim boarding or (if the weather wasn't as good, sand eel fishing, exploring various National Trust places, places like the Air Musuem or other towns like Fowey, Tintagel, Land's End etc.

I now own a business in Leeds and one of my employees grew up on the other side of the hill at Porth beach and we often chat about how it's changed (where he grew up didn't even exist when I spent my childhood there as he's some 30 years younger than me).

Garda and Ullswater are among favourite places but deserts and water are my preferred location. Africa is amazing for that.
Sunrise at either is often magical.
Oh and the first time I saw the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak I simply stopped and sat and watched the light move through the pillars.
And walking with Scraps or Snapper (Jack Russells) was always a winner on coastal cliffs in the SW.

Back in the early 70s when I was about four or five, went to my Grandparents farm in very, very rural Kerry. No tv, can’t remember if they had electricity. I can still remember the thrill of being on a farm with cows and hens. Got to milk cows, play whilst uncles and dad were making haystacks, went to puck fair and got taken to a funeral which included the traditional viewing the corpse first!
Still remember that holiday more than most others.

Was brought up living near the beach. Holidays were spent on the beach. When you live where people go on holiday, it’s a bit special. Day on the sand, playing in the sea, fish and chips on the back beach watching sun set over Dartmoor, home tired. Repeat for six weeks. If it rained, we went to Dartmoor.

Many years ago when i was about 7 or eight, my mother, father, sister, and I got in our old Opel Corsa, attached the Camp-Let trailer tent, and went to Spa in Belgium. None of us knew the language, the car was really too small for us, but it was an amazing holiday!

Got to drive on the Spa-Francorchamps racing cirquit in the Opel, Saw a stage of the Grundig Mountainbike World cup, and one evening, while cooking dinner on the gas stove in the tent, a gasket on the attached 2½ kilo gas canister suddenly failed, causing a minor gas explosion and some panic in the camping ground.

Great days!

I go all misty-eyed and whimsical when I think of all those wonderful days and nights spent in that magical place

I was very lucky in having parents who took us away a lot, to the extent that I can remember every holiday that we had when I was growing up.

1974 – Seaton
1975 – Dawlish Warren & Dymchurch
1976 – Kidwelly & Bude (Double rain!)
1977 – Dawlish Warren & London
1978 – Dawlish Warren & Dartmouth
1979 - Dawlish Warren & London
1980 – Albuferia
1981 – Malta
1982 – Toulon
1983 – Playa del Aro
1984 – Estartit
1985 – Salou

Stopped going with my parents at this point

Since we’ve had kids

2009 – Sidmouth
2010 – Berwick upon Tweed
2011 – Weymouth
2012 – Looe
2013 – New Quay & Rye
2014 – Criccieth & Southwold
2015 – Ilfracombe & Whitstable
2016 – Sidmouth & Looe
2017 – Brixham & Isle of Wight
2018 – Southwold & Marazion
2019 – Tenby & Weymouth

Many of these have been with extended family or friends, and there are numerous weekend breaks that I can’t be bothered listing. The most important thing is that my kids now remember them as I did when I was growing up back in the 70s.

We’re not extravagant as a family with all spare money going towards dull things like the mortgage and pension, but we do like to get away on holiday.

I only had one family holiday as a child and my only memory of it is the huge argument the hospital bill caused after my mother got badly sunburnt meaning we ran out of money and had to go home early.
I did get two summers in Cyprus while my Dad was stationed there, so there’s that.

The best holiday I’ve had as an adult was Easter in Croatia a couple of years ago. 5 days rebreather diving followed by 5 days driving round Croatia going to Plitvice and finishing in Zagreb.

Going to Cap d'Agde with the wife ...

😊👍🏼😂😛👌😜🤗🤥😈

...or was that a dream !