As travel has got easier over the years, the choice of destinations we can easily reach gets broader, so do we ever miss the holidays we took as children?
For many of us, our first taste of family holidays wasn’t a Mediterranean hot spot, The States or a far-flung adventure, but a few nights enjoying the charms of a UK town or resort.
Instead of worrying about sunshine hours, the Euro rate or wifi to keep connected, we spent our time catching crabs, firing coppers into arcade machines or wolfing down our ’99s before the seagulls spotted a snacking opportunity.
And this nostalgic view of the past, coupled with our own focus on value for money, is driving a new type of break.
It seems that in this age of austerity we are taking our own families back to the destinations we loved as tots – a phenomenon that has been coined Inherited Holidays.
My own Inherited Holidays would be spent in Barmouth on the west Wales coast. Although I didn’t recognise it when I was young, the town is surrounded by truly beautiful countryside – it’s located in the Snowdonia National Park – and the old streets and buildings are full of charm.
Of more importance when I was young was the gigantic Barmouth beach, which was where we spent our days building sand castles and moats, playing French cricket and plucking up the courage to drag ourselves step by forced step into the chilly waters of the Atlantic (nobody thought to bring along a wet suit in those days!).
But the bracing ocean temperatures were soon forgotten as the waves came crashing and scores of youngsters paddled furiously to catch the peak and bodyboard atop their lilos into shore.
Ahhh, great days!
So Inherited Holidays makes sense: they tap into our happy memories, our desire to unhook ourselves from technology for a few days and escape to times that felt simpler, more relaxing – maybe even more fun?
But can Inherited Holidays live up to our increasingly heightened levels of expectation in the 21st century?
Well, I think there’s actually less pressure on a holiday to be amazing when we take a trip back to the past. After all, we’re not doing this to find the holiday of a lifetime, have an incredible cultural experience or lie on a beach enjoying the world’s finest weather.
Instead, we can focus on having fun, spending time with our loved ones and having the chance to do some of the things that make us happy, such as walking along the coast, enjoying a long lazy lunch, or playing the fool with our kids.
At BreakFree, we are all for Inherited Holidays! If you are tempted, why not find the holiday spot of your childhood in our UK Destinations section.
Leave a comment and tell us where you would visit on an Inherited Holiday, and what are your favourite childhood memories?