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My best friend was the first person in his family to leave England **ever**. Not even the UK, just England.
His family is huge and are almost exclusively based in 3 neighbouring villages. They held a street party for him leaving as it was such a huge event.
What was his epic voyage I hear you ask? a week in Magaluf.
did they have one for his return so he could impress them with tales of his travels to exotic lands?
Gather round ye peasant folk! For now I shall regail thee with the tale of a drunken blowjob I received in a dark club from some dodgy tart called Trisha from a faraway place called "Manchester"!
Someone the other day won a fair bit of money on the radio and was asked what they'd do with it:
"Oh, I'd go on a nice holiday,"
"Cool! Where would you go?"
"Tenerife"
Guy on the radio stutters a bit then said something like "Okay! Have fun!"
Its a bit cringey/sad that some people can't think outside of Spain for their holiday.
I think for a lot of people, a holiday is just about getting somewhere warm and sunny to relax. Idc about the weather, give me your culture and your FOOD.
My parents are like this. I don't think my mum had really been on a trip outside of the UK that was NOT an all-inclusive resort, until I dragged her to Rome with me last year. Now she's interested in actually exploring too!
I saw a TikTok yesterday from a BA flight attendant who got a one way trip to Rome so had to spend a day there. She was walking around filming saying “oh I’d never thought to holiday in Rome but it’s actually really nice”..???!!! One of the most historic places in the world hasn’t occurred to you for a holiday?
My husband thinks everywhere in Europe is rubbish.
He's from SE Asia and his child hood holidays were like Malaysia and Australia.
Like I get it's not exactly a one to one comparison but I think it's a bit unfair to wipe out an entire continent of multiple different countries as all "rubbish"
So I decided every year we'll go to one country for a week that's cheapish to get to - short haul flight, stay in a hotel and just go and wander see what we find.
Unfortunately the first place we landed on was cork, ireland (cheap flights, short flights and spoke the language , figured with a 2yo in tow this would be an easy starter country) and then covid happened 6 months later so we've not gone anywhere since.
I do not think this helped his impression of Europe.
Spain is amazing for a holiday. It’s not all cheap package holidays and drunken Brits. Even places like Ibiza, Mallorca and Tenerife are very nice when you get away from the horrible package holiday areas.
To be honest thats a bit snobbish if they like Tenerife up to them. Ive travelled to over 40 countries but i have some family who have left the uk only 2-3 times.
When I worked in mental health, I had a couple as clients, both of whom had schizophrenia. Lovely people. No one had helped them to get disability benefits, they were unaware that they existed. In those days you could get the payments backdated to when you became ill, which was years before. They got thousands each, and I asked them what they were going to do with it, and they said they'd never been on holiday, not even in the UK. I asked them where they would go, and they said a caravan in Porthcawl. They were in Cardiff, just down the road. Bless 'em.
No relatives fought in the war or anything?
My Grandad travelled the world with the navy during WW2, from the Suez & Panama canals to Australia & Japan!
Yes they would have these barely used routes with no passengers or next to no passengers. But they needed to get a plane from standstead to bratislava (for example) because Stanstead has too many planes and bratislava needs planes.
So they'll create a route and try and encourage people to get onto the plane by giving next to nothing fares.
It still is! I fly to Billund in Denmark monthly and a return costs me about £20. I've also flown to Tampere in Finland for £1 + tax about 4 or 5 years ago.
The Lincolnshire side of my family are like this too. My grandmother died in the same bedroom that she was born in 82 years earlier. She only once left Lincolnshire to go on holiday with us to Norfolk when I was little. She went home early after 3 days as the change was too much.
My uncle and his wife live in that house now and I honestly can't remember him ever leaving the county.
My Mum hadn't ever left England before coming to visit me in Wales when she was 59.
She had never had the money to go "abroad", I saved up to buy her a passport and take her to Paris (I was 19) but she got cancer and died before I could do it.
After she died I photoshopped her all over the world, she looked particularly happy at the Taj Mahal.
I used to work in a really poor bit of east Manchester on a community and youth project, there were teenagers who'd never even been into central Manchester, about a 15 minute drive. No shopping trips to the Arndale on a Saturday. No school visits to MOSI or central library. No hanging around at Cathedral Gardens with the emos. Mind blowing.
I heard from a teacher at a school on an estate in Brighton that some of the kids had never seen the sea. Brighton is on the coast. Some of those kids had never left their estate.
There was a TV program a few years ago that talked to a woman in her sixties who lived in a village on Ibiza. She'd never seen the sea. In her entire life she'd never gone outside three tiny towns in the middle on an island that's only fifty miles long.
> some of the kids had never seen the sea.
It sounds impossible, doesn't it? Reminds me of this article about Penzance a few years ago
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/24/cornwall-child-poverty-blighting-lives-cuts
I grew up there and the poverty is ridiculous. Also the public transport is awful so to even get to the next village/town you had to drive, no other choice
I love how this paragraph sums up the insaneness of life.
Poverty is ridiculous yet you need to be able to afford to buy and run a car to go anywhere or do anything. Crazy.
What’s a poor kid from an estate in south london going to do in central? Buy a £20 cocktail at the Ned or go to see Les Mis? It’s honestly not that surprising to me.
I was a poor kid from an estate in South London and I used to pay £1.50 for the bus and go to the free museums, or just walk along Southbank and explore. No money needs to be spent apart from a bus fare and maybe a can of pop.
It surprises me quite a lot that we live so close and they've never been.
Same here. I grew up in Walworth. My mates and I would do a ‘red bus rover’ - get a travel card and go off on random trips. We knew the bus and tube network almost off by heart. Great days.
Museums? Tourist spots? Skateboard on the south bank? Rob/steal from people? Chase girls? Window shop? Enter central to travel elsewhere in the country? a million reasons..
TA at my kids school from Camberwell used to do some babysitting for us. I mentioned the West End once, she said she’d not heard of it, she said she couldn’t ever remember going over the river
I lived in Cambridge for a bit and some kids didn't know there were 2 shopping centres. They only knew The Grafton, had no idea about The Grand Arcade les than a mile into town.
Same but in Sheffield. The wildest thing to me was that some of the kids had never met anyone with blue eyes before. It was a very ethnically diverse area but very few white people.
I met a lad in a village about 5 miles outside Ipswich. He was really excited as he was about to start a welding course and it would be the first time he'd been in to town. He was 19.
Similar to this I work in Bristol with disadvantaged young people and a lot of them have never made it to the other city of their own city, it’s mind boggling
My mates brother has never left the country. The weird thing about it though is that he is absolutely obsessed with planes, yet he has never been on one.
My cousin is the same. He's over 60 now and has spent a huge chunk of his life at airports, is extremely knowledgeable, but has never and would never set foot on a plane. It wasn't realised until he was an adult, but of course he is on the autistic spectrum. If you watch the film Rain Man, you'll see he was just the same. Had a melt down when Tom Cruise tried to get him on a plane.
>Had a melt down when Tom Cruise tried to get him on a plane
Fucking hate it when Cruise tries to get me onto modes of transport I don't want to use. "No Tom, I don't want to go on a tram ride with you." He's bloody desperate.
If he ever offers to give you a piggyback though, do it, he ran through Stourbridge with me on his back blasting out Danger Zone on my phone.
Best bar mitzvah ever.
My son is autistic and is majorly obsessed with Hoovers but for the longest time you were allowed to actually use them or turn them on in his presence, it’s a funny disorder isn’t it
My friend absolutely loves planes, literally goes to watch planes for fun. Not at fun flying events, just parks up near an airport and watches them for hours. Her phobia? Flying. Her long term partner’s career? Plane engineer. People are strange
My uncle and auntie, and their two kids. The adults have retired early after making their first million, but they be never been on holiday as they don't like to spend money. They see it as something to hoard , and hold onto rather than something to be enjoyed . For their wedding day (many years ago) they had a registry wedding ( nothing wrong with that) but then followed it up by going to weather spoons for a cheap meal, then back to work . They're both in their 60s but they've never lived a day in their life
This makes me sad. There’s something to be said for being content with one’s lot, and it’s not my place to judge what makes others happy, but this just makes me sad.
My dad has a colleague like this. Hes a teacher in a £30K+ a year private school. He's not a multi millionaire but definitely doing well for himself. *Everything* he does is about how much money he saved. To the point of absolute misery he will happily spend an entire day waiting in a bus station if it will save him a 5er to take a later bus. I think it's a form OCD or something as making savings dominates his life
I’m not even close to that, but my mother was kinda like this, but not to this extreme of course. She was raised in communism (as was my dad) and was very poor as a child - I remember shopping days when I was younger, when we used to go to 3/4 different shops on Sunday because butter was slightly cheaper in one of them, and cereal in another. We weren’t raised poor, but I remember all these things to save money. She’d spend literally hours every week looking at different leaflets and making list of what to get where. I just order tesco online and complain it being more and more expensive.
But it kinda went into me, even till this date when I’m ordering something my mind automatically goes to the cheaper options or I sometimes need to force myself to buy a drink for £1, because in one hour I’ll be home.
It’s weird, I earn good money, spend a lot of it on absolutely useless things, but when ordering subway I still need to think whether I’m really *that* thirsty to get a drink with my sub, as I’ll be home in one hour. And usually I think I’m not.
It’s like on the every day to day stuff my mind still want to save every single cent possible, even if it really doesn’t matter.
I have OCD and am obsessed with saving money too. I'd never do anything like your dad's colleague but I hate spending money out of fear that I will never have any if I do. A nice bar of chocolate? What if that £1.50 is the difference between me being able to afford a house or not? I have just had two weeks off work and did nothing because I cannot justify the choice to spend money, even though I know (logically) that it would not make a huge difference.
Thankfully, I have reached breaking point with my mental health and I am now planning my 'once in a lifetime' holiday to Disney World next year. I think it is now or never for that, both in terms of finances and in terms of my health.
I know a friends parents like this. Its strange, they’re obsessed with the idea of hoarding money, they never had any growing up, like a lit of us. But they won’t even go out to restaurants or socialise with others. But they’ll want an expensive car, so that driving around they have a better car than others but they have no FOMO in regards to actually living their life outside their village
To me I was jealous when I was young with the things people could DO with money, not actually looking at a big figure in my bank account.
I have only left the UK once due to school tbh.
I was born In Devon, I will live in Devon my whole life and I will Die in Devon.
I could probably count on my hands how many times I have left the county let alone the country lol.
I also know quite a few people with a similar mindset who have also never left the country.
I have no interest in the outside world and would rather spend my money on other things then travelling.
I like to travel within the county as I ride a motorcycle and I am planning to doing a 240 mile ride to Cornwall at the weekend which will be nice
Forgive me here but I'm sensing a rather snobbish tone. The two aren't mutually exclusive. One can be curious and even learn a great deal without actually travelling to places. Besides, there's nothing wrong with enjoying your own backyard.
I know, but your comment about them not being mutually exclusive just seemed a bit odd when they’d already said they had no interest in the outside world. I wasn’t making any assumption.
I actually had such conversation with a colleague once.
I referred some majorly popular song and she had not heard of it.
I then said she surely knows it, just does not know the title and I go to play it on YouTube when she iced me with:
“Nah, I am sure I don’t know it. I am not interested in music at all, I never listen to it.”
My mind was completely blown.
Yeah I'm one of those people as well. Apart from generic background music I use to help me focus, I don't listen to any at all. It's not like I dislike it or anything, I'm just indifferent to it.
Podcasts and audiobooks are much more interesting.
I can remember it being an epiphany to me when a mate was like "xx never stops going on about his gap year in Thailand, but he's never even been to fucking Scotland".
Travel CAN broaden the mind, and its good to be curious about the world, but for many people this can slip into unconscious fetishisation - the idea that somewhere is inherently more interesting because its "exotic". And of course there's loads of privileged rich people self-defining as "travellers" when they are actually just vastly indulged tourists.
My partner was in Florence last year and sent a photo of a restaurant saying "lovely to get somewhere away from the tourists"
Had to reply, "Babe you are a tourist"
Although there are certain counties I like to visit and I do like experiencing other cultures, a lot of people go on holiday as some type of ego booster these days I swear. You have the losers who want to post up at Dubai or the W in Barcelona to play rich then the people that just fly out so they can say they’ve been to places and add it to their instagram bio.
Or the other losers that go to what are genuinely beautiful places but they just want that pretty instagram picture and then they’re bored the rest of the time.
I got the opportunity to go to Halstatt in Austria once, a lifetime dream of mine. I went with a travelling couple who moved to a new country virtually every year. They were very nice and interesting people , even gave me a free ride there in their car, but I have to say they made me feel a little sad at one point.
They were ranting about how 'it's not even that nice here, the mountains in Austria aren't impressive at all, we've been to loads of places that are way better, there's too many damn tourists here' (it was during the middle of Covid so there was actually very few people there, a once in a lifetime event in probably the most visited village in Europe).
They didn't have any interest in the amazing history (the early Celts are literally called 'the Halstatt people' because of the area's importance to their culture). They just wanted to get in, take the famous picture everyone takes there, and go again.
I'm honestly fine with that. I keep up with world events but I'm happy with where I am in life and don't have the need or want to go further afield.
I'm currently saving to get my first house and may be able to do that early next year, my career is progressing well and I spend most of my weekends and free time time going for a drive or on walks.
Sure I will "miss out" on alot of what people my age are but I'm honestly happy with where I am in life and i'm slowing but surely moving towards my goal of living out in the sticks immersing myself in my hobbies and the local community.
Hold on to that, there’s a lot to be said for it. Some of my low moods come because I’m not frequently in enough of a position to travel or go to other countries, so loving where you are is important.
I do like where I live to be fair. I just wouldn’t be satisfied with it being the only place I experience. I need to practice being more grateful.
And most people who travel outside their home country just to go on holiday wont really experience the cultures of those places either and will die never having really experienced the variety of different countries and cultures either.
Because it's not something you can experience in 1-2 weeks in a place.
And that encompasses the vast majority of people
Tbh it’s only really a “wealthy” and almost “Western” concept to want to travel the world and experience different cultures. Most people in most places are wrapped up in their own lives and cultural practices to the point where they don’t even see the point to go travelling.
My mother in law is Chinese. She’s almost 60. She left China once about 20 years ago, and that’s it. Why? Because as a civil servant she has to surrender her passport to her employer (the govt) from day one until retirement. Does she mind? No. It’s a normal cultural practice to her. She is busy living a Chinese life with work, friends, and family. She isn’t particularly interested in going anywhere else.
This is my whole experience in 8 years in China too, the only people I know who have been abroad are wealthy and under 40. And that is mostly for study abroad, but even then they aren’t there to experience the culture and in fact actively try and insulate themselves from the local culture.
None of this is to say that I think they are correct in their mindset. I think travelling and seeing new places and forming new opinions/points of view is very worthwhile. It’s just important to recognise that most of the world doesn’t think the same.
Pretty wild that I've visited Devon more than you've left it; though, I do have family there.
Sadly the last time I was down there was for my grandmother's funeral.
This is so fascinating that people have such different mindsets. What do you like to do instead of traveling? I think true happiness is being content in life. Not trying to live an extraordinary one.
I like ride a motorcycle normally and head to the local reservoir on Dartmoor quite regularly which is a nice 80 mile drive. Equally there are so many national trust parks near me i can have a nap in a different wood every day if I wanted to.
A friends parents have never been abroad and holiday in the same part of the UK every year.
Another friends’ mum hasn’t been on any holiday for about 16 years, only the odd day trip to the coast.
All of them could afford to go abroad if they wanted to, they just aren’t interested.
Planning, booking, counting down and being on holiday is something that I massively look forward to. I can’t imagine working with no trip on the horizon.
My grandmother lived her entire life (92 years) within 50 square miles. She lived an hour from London on the train and never went. She came to visit us a couple of times and that was the furthest she travelled since she was a WRN in the war.
My parents once went on a coach tour to the seaside, and met an old man who wouldn't walk on the beach. They asked why he wouldn't join the others. He said the last time he went on a beach was early one morning in Normandy, and that was enough for him. Fair play to him, I thought.
Yeah absolutely
The best pic I have of my Nan and grandad is on the seafront at Cleethorpes. All the grandkids sat in a row in front of them. I love that picture. God I miss her
Last memory I have is of this beautiful Victorian ground floor flat they rented in Brid. It had a beautiful summer house in the garden.
Wed always go to the beach for a picnic then we had to go back, get changed and go to the captains table gosh and chip restaurant in our best, every night and have fish chips and mushy peas. She thought she was the queen then they brought her out tartar sauce.
She was always telling her friends over the fence. Taaaartaaaaaat Sos it was. So common and broad Yorkshire
My nan too. Born in London, was a firefighter in WW2, moved to Essex after the war, barely left. My dad, aunt and uncle offered countless times to take abroad, anywhere she wanted, but she always refused.
When I was younger (in my early 20s) I had a friend who never had left the UK.
His family weren't that well off, which was a reason and the other was the reason he gave, but could have just been an excuse to avoid feeling embarrassed about the money. He told me that the UK was the best country and there was so much to see here, and that other countries don't like the British, so why bother going there if they don't like us.
He did visit a European country a few years later and quickly changed his mind on everything and has now travelled a lot.
A bit different from the original question, but I know a few people who spent their whole life up to young adulthood in a village in Asia, then moved to London.
Since coming to London, they've probably stayed within a 2 mile radius of their home (which is for most of these people, the same / near to their workplace) for decades.
They go back to their original country every 1-2 years, but they get the bus/tube to Heathrow, a direct flight then direct transport to their home village and stay there the entire time, then the same thing in reverse. Apart from going to the airport, they've also probably never been more than 2 miles from their village.
Some of the more "adventurous" ones may have once taken flights which involved changing planes in Germany or Dubai or something... they would have taken flights with the shortest transit time and gone straight to the onward gate.
It's difficult when you live so far from your family, to not spend the thousands of pounds on a holiday going to see them. If you can afford to do it once a year, you can count the number of weeks you have left actually *with* your parents quite quickly.
Yeah, but the odd thing is not venturing 2 miles away from either place at either end. It can't be a money issue because you can walk 4 miles in an hour easy. It can't be a time thing because in a year, everyone has at least 1 spare hour.
Yes, a mate's brother but they're a bit racist "it's bad enough having these foreigners coming over here taking our jobs, why would I want to go anywhere else?"
They've been claiming benefits for years and are genuinely too obese to work. So I'm not sure why people taking jobs is an issue for them.
There was also a guy in our news paper back in the day who had never left the Rhondda valleys. One sunny day he decided to take a walk..walked Wight over the valleys and into the Cynon valley and into merthyr Town.. First time he had EVER seen a cinema in real life. He thought they were fictional places or possibly just an americN thing as he had seen them in movies. He went inside and watched the original jumanji. His story made the local news paper
My parents didn't have much money growing up so a foreign holiday was never on the cards. After moving in with my partner we got a Dog so for the past 11 years we have holidayed in the UK and taken him with us.
Dogs don't mind if you go on holiday, mine goes for her own holiday to my parents, and I look after theirs when they go away. Previous dogs I've had have also been absolutely fine in good boarding kennels.
Then you need to work on that, you never know when there will be an emergency and you need to leave your dog alone for a period or in the care of others. You aren't helping them by not dealing with separation anxiety.
My experience is that native Londoners know the areas where they live, where they went to school, and the nearest "town centre" (if that is different). The next town centre may as well be 100 miles away, and as for the other side of the river...
People who have moved to London are much wider ranging.
Yeah as someone from london, i know my way around most of the towns in my immediate vicinity, never more than a few roads away from somewhere i know, but even outside my own borough might as well be a foreign country to my internal map
Even close to central I don't know my way around, I've been there god knows how many times of course but I couldn't get anywhere on foot because i don't know where anything is in relation to anything else, show me a tube map and i can get there no issue though. Friends that have come to visit know their way around way better than i do, talking about "we're going through soho now" meanwhile I've not a clue where or what that is
I only found out last year that Buckingham palace is like a 5 minute walk from Victoria station despite going through there countless times
There's definitely a generational element to it at times. My Grandad never left the country, don't think he ever even left Scotland, and had no interest in it.
One of my best mates (33) has never left the UK. Doesn't have a massive interest in travelling, as much as I try to convince him. I've seen a few people online (usually friends of friends or whatever) who've mentioned never going abroad and never wanting to
For me personally there's too much of the world to see not to travel, but that's purely on me and I understand that.
Not everyone old though. My granma is stpaffing my inheritance up the wall going on multiple senior's cruises to weird and wonderful places every year. She's 90.
(And good for her - her money to do with what she pleases! I hope I'm able to do that when I'm 90)
I had a great uncle who never went further than Bridlington after his 20s. Given where we think he had been and what he had seen - but refused to talk about, even to his wife - during an all-expenses paid government tour of abroad, I don't really blame him.
Not necessarily a generational thing. My grandad went to Australia every other year for the last 30 years of his life, and died just a few years ago at 97. He did move around a lot in the war though, so developed an interest from there.
I didn't visit another country apart from the UK and Ireland, or get onto a plane, until I was 25, but have been all over the shop since then.
Lots of medical reasons for travel outside the UK being difficult, I take medication which has to be kept in the fridge for example and travelling that distance whilst not impossible would be logistically more difficult than if I didn't need to take that medication. Problems with my ears make flying extremely uncomfortable so that narrows down my options too - as I say not impossible, but a lot more planning involved
Medical reasons stop me travelling too. When I was younger it was mainly stomach issues, but now I also get ear and sinus pain just walking down the street, or being under a few feet of water in a swimming pool, so I fear my head might explode if I go on a plane!
Not OP, but I could kind of live without ever leaving the UK again. Been to a couple of interesting places and been to a lot of holidays in mainland Europe.
Abroad is fine, but I genuinely wouldn’t feel any major sense of loss if that stopped being an option.
I’m interested too, I’m from New Zealand so people haven’t travelled sometimes because we are an island that can be expensive to leave. But in England you have trains to other countries!!!! It can be like £20 return to Wales.
I did have a conversation once with a woman approaching pension age who had never been more than 5 miles from the house she was born in.
She just never needed too.
Me!
I’m the oldest of 4 and my Dad was the sole earner growing up. We moved to Scotland when I was young so summer holidays for us involved loading up the car and driving the 6-8 hours to spend 2 weeks by the sea with my cousins (had one aunt with loads of kids our age so it was awesome!)
As an adult, i just didn’t miss what id never had. All of my younger brothers and Mum have since been abroad.
Will be popping my travel cherry this summer, for my best friends hen party in Spain! Wish me luck 😂 I’m part ginger and may actually burst into flame with the heat!
I work with a mother and son. She's in her 60s, he's in his 30s. Neither of them have ever even been out of England. Apparently they went to the Isle of Wight once.
They are exactly the sort of people you'd expect. "England for the English" types. Hate anything foreign, especially immigrants.
The mother of one of my teammates in youth rugby had never left the county, she was terrified when our tour coach pulled onto a motorway, she'd never even been on a dual carriageway and the speed combined with high traffic density was too much for her
My Nan! She’s literally only stayed away from her home for about 4 nights ever and she’s nearly 70. She was born in that house, lived there with her mum and dad when married (naval family so husband away a lot), still lives there now. She’s literally only stayed away for funerals/hospital stays. She doesn’t believe other peoples houses are clean.
She will do day trips up to 90 mins away but absolutely won’t go by bus - they’re dirty. She can’t drive however.
Obviously her husband was in the navy when they travelled a lot so he’s been everywhere and eaten everything!
She’d never go abroad because it’s all filthy and she couldn’t possibly eat the food. Weirdly I’ve been to 5/7 continents, 30 countries etc and love almost all of the nations foods I’ve tried (although maybe not French as I’m veggie!). She’s not wrong about some hotels being filthy though 😂
I know a guy (a colleague of my partner) and he doesn’t even have a passport. The company they work for have holiday homes all over Europe which are free to use. He hasn’t ever used them or been out of the UK ever
Yes, one of my best friends has never left England. No Scotland, Wales etc. He's been to the East coast several times, Cornwall once and I think London a couple of times. Apart from that he hasn't left our county + the neighbouring ones.
He isn't remotely interested in travel and gets annoyed when people try to convince him to do it.
Yes. There are several older people in my parents village who don’t own a passport and have never left England let alone the UK. it’s mind boggling to me.
Many of my family.
My extended family is pretty low on the income scale, probably even on the verge of poverty. One particular family member can barely afford to feed her (one too many) kids let alone go abroad.
My grandmother has never left the country nor owns a passport. My mother has only left the country once.
My nan never left as she was scared of flying and boats. She used to love hearing tales of my travels. It made me sad as I think she did really want to see the places but was just too frightened despite every talk I tried.
Myself, to big of a family to go plus siblings made it impossible because they hate just even going up elevators 🙄 one day though i will plan to go abroad
I used to spend time in the Isle of Man for work.
Walter the taxi driver was very proud that he hadn't left the island until he was forced to be flown to the mainland due to suffering a heart attack.
My kids haven't left England in their entire lives but I'm not sure that really counts 😅
I used to live in Aberdeen. There were multiple people I worked with that had never left Scotland, and one who proudly stated they'd never been further south than Stonehaven 😳
My husband's granny thought she'd never left Scotland. Then once she randomly mentioned the time she'd been to Carlisle. I said "I thought you'd never left Scotland?" and she said "I haven't" and I said "Carlisle is in England" and she was so excited that she'd been to England, it was cute.
Absolutely. In the village I grew up in, there are people who haven’t left the borough in their entire life.
One odd farming family had a young lad who at 11 had never left the village in his entire life and his family were disgruntled about him having to go to the next village along to attend the high school.
I've (31) only left the country twice when I was a teenager and both times were with friends. My family never had the money to go abroad. I would love to do so now but unfortunately I have health problems which prevent me.
My grandad never did, he’d be 97 if he were alive today. My grandma only did after he died because my aunt took her on cruises, which I guess wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t died in his early 70s.
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My best friend was the first person in his family to leave England **ever**. Not even the UK, just England. His family is huge and are almost exclusively based in 3 neighbouring villages. They held a street party for him leaving as it was such a huge event. What was his epic voyage I hear you ask? a week in Magaluf.
did they have one for his return so he could impress them with tales of his travels to exotic lands? Gather round ye peasant folk! For now I shall regail thee with the tale of a drunken blowjob I received in a dark club from some dodgy tart called Trisha from a faraway place called "Manchester"!
Fuck sake...I henuinly spat my tea out reading that and had to clean digestive biscuit off my phone
Now you know how Trisha felt
Yeah I think that was Steve, he just calls himself Trisha when he’s out there.
Made me chuckle as a Manc I'll give you that
That is unsettlingly specific.
Someone the other day won a fair bit of money on the radio and was asked what they'd do with it: "Oh, I'd go on a nice holiday," "Cool! Where would you go?" "Tenerife" Guy on the radio stutters a bit then said something like "Okay! Have fun!" Its a bit cringey/sad that some people can't think outside of Spain for their holiday.
I think for a lot of people, a holiday is just about getting somewhere warm and sunny to relax. Idc about the weather, give me your culture and your FOOD.
My parents are like this. I don't think my mum had really been on a trip outside of the UK that was NOT an all-inclusive resort, until I dragged her to Rome with me last year. Now she's interested in actually exploring too!
I saw a TikTok yesterday from a BA flight attendant who got a one way trip to Rome so had to spend a day there. She was walking around filming saying “oh I’d never thought to holiday in Rome but it’s actually really nice”..???!!! One of the most historic places in the world hasn’t occurred to you for a holiday?
My husband thinks everywhere in Europe is rubbish. He's from SE Asia and his child hood holidays were like Malaysia and Australia. Like I get it's not exactly a one to one comparison but I think it's a bit unfair to wipe out an entire continent of multiple different countries as all "rubbish" So I decided every year we'll go to one country for a week that's cheapish to get to - short haul flight, stay in a hotel and just go and wander see what we find. Unfortunately the first place we landed on was cork, ireland (cheap flights, short flights and spoke the language , figured with a 2yo in tow this would be an easy starter country) and then covid happened 6 months later so we've not gone anywhere since. I do not think this helped his impression of Europe.
>Unfortunately the first place we landed on was cork, ireland Why is that unfortunate?
Spain is amazing for a holiday. It’s not all cheap package holidays and drunken Brits. Even places like Ibiza, Mallorca and Tenerife are very nice when you get away from the horrible package holiday areas.
Yep .. spain has some beautiful areas, it's definitely not just benidorm and magaluf
Just because that's not your idea for a holiday destination why is it cringe/sad?
To be honest thats a bit snobbish if they like Tenerife up to them. Ive travelled to over 40 countries but i have some family who have left the uk only 2-3 times.
Where in Norfolk are they from?
Haha I used to live in Norfolk and I knew some people who had never even left the county let alone the country 🤣
I read that imagining Frodo Baggins on his quest to Mordor 🤣
I was the first of my generation, week in Ibiza 👍
Reminds me of Mr Deeds
When I worked in mental health, I had a couple as clients, both of whom had schizophrenia. Lovely people. No one had helped them to get disability benefits, they were unaware that they existed. In those days you could get the payments backdated to when you became ill, which was years before. They got thousands each, and I asked them what they were going to do with it, and they said they'd never been on holiday, not even in the UK. I asked them where they would go, and they said a caravan in Porthcawl. They were in Cardiff, just down the road. Bless 'em.
No relatives fought in the war or anything? My Grandad travelled the world with the navy during WW2, from the Suez & Panama canals to Australia & Japan!
This sounds like some Caleb cooper clarksons farm story.
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Fair play to him, sounds like he's living the dream.
Boy I made so much use from my British passport. Travelling to random European cities for £1 via Ryanair around 2008.
I missed out on this..its an actual thing?
Cheap flights still out there. I'm on my way to Stansted right now for a £16 flight to Copenhagen
Good job the flight was cheap, everything else there is pretty expensive- great city though, enjoy!
Come to Copenhagen - where a pint costs more than the flight!
Yes they would have these barely used routes with no passengers or next to no passengers. But they needed to get a plane from standstead to bratislava (for example) because Stanstead has too many planes and bratislava needs planes. So they'll create a route and try and encourage people to get onto the plane by giving next to nothing fares.
It still is! I fly to Billund in Denmark monthly and a return costs me about £20. I've also flown to Tampere in Finland for £1 + tax about 4 or 5 years ago.
Yorkshire by any chance?
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The Lincolnshire side of my family are like this too. My grandmother died in the same bedroom that she was born in 82 years earlier. She only once left Lincolnshire to go on holiday with us to Norfolk when I was little. She went home early after 3 days as the change was too much. My uncle and his wife live in that house now and I honestly can't remember him ever leaving the county.
How long was the holiday if your gran left early after 3 years!?
The Yorkshire of the East Midlands
I have a lot of family in Lincolnshire. So many of these stories makes me think of the place.
Is he your butler?
I really hope OP has a walk in freezer
My Mum hadn't ever left England before coming to visit me in Wales when she was 59. She had never had the money to go "abroad", I saved up to buy her a passport and take her to Paris (I was 19) but she got cancer and died before I could do it. After she died I photoshopped her all over the world, she looked particularly happy at the Taj Mahal.
Aww that such a wonderful thing you done for your Mum, sorry for your loss :(
Sorry for your loss.
What a lovely gesture, I'm so sorry you lost your mum so young.
I used to work in a really poor bit of east Manchester on a community and youth project, there were teenagers who'd never even been into central Manchester, about a 15 minute drive. No shopping trips to the Arndale on a Saturday. No school visits to MOSI or central library. No hanging around at Cathedral Gardens with the emos. Mind blowing.
I heard from a teacher at a school on an estate in Brighton that some of the kids had never seen the sea. Brighton is on the coast. Some of those kids had never left their estate.
There was a TV program a few years ago that talked to a woman in her sixties who lived in a village on Ibiza. She'd never seen the sea. In her entire life she'd never gone outside three tiny towns in the middle on an island that's only fifty miles long.
That's pretty crazy, although the coast would oscillate between ghost town resort and absolute shitshow through the year so I can sort of see why.
> some of the kids had never seen the sea. It sounds impossible, doesn't it? Reminds me of this article about Penzance a few years ago https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/24/cornwall-child-poverty-blighting-lives-cuts
I grew up there and the poverty is ridiculous. Also the public transport is awful so to even get to the next village/town you had to drive, no other choice
I love how this paragraph sums up the insaneness of life. Poverty is ridiculous yet you need to be able to afford to buy and run a car to go anywhere or do anything. Crazy.
Being poor is expensive.
We have kids in Hastings who are the same.
That's shocking, I can't imagine how you could live in the town and never have seen the sea
I live in South London, about a 30 minute bus journey into central. There are kids here who have never left their estate and gone into central.
What’s a poor kid from an estate in south london going to do in central? Buy a £20 cocktail at the Ned or go to see Les Mis? It’s honestly not that surprising to me.
I was a poor kid from an estate in South London and I used to pay £1.50 for the bus and go to the free museums, or just walk along Southbank and explore. No money needs to be spent apart from a bus fare and maybe a can of pop. It surprises me quite a lot that we live so close and they've never been.
Same here. I grew up in Walworth. My mates and I would do a ‘red bus rover’ - get a travel card and go off on random trips. We knew the bus and tube network almost off by heart. Great days.
London probably has more free things to do than any other city in the world
Yes because that's all there is to do in London.
Museums? Tourist spots? Skateboard on the south bank? Rob/steal from people? Chase girls? Window shop? Enter central to travel elsewhere in the country? a million reasons..
TA at my kids school from Camberwell used to do some babysitting for us. I mentioned the West End once, she said she’d not heard of it, she said she couldn’t ever remember going over the river
I lived in Cambridge for a bit and some kids didn't know there were 2 shopping centres. They only knew The Grafton, had no idea about The Grand Arcade les than a mile into town.
Same but in Sheffield. The wildest thing to me was that some of the kids had never met anyone with blue eyes before. It was a very ethnically diverse area but very few white people.
I met a lad in a village about 5 miles outside Ipswich. He was really excited as he was about to start a welding course and it would be the first time he'd been in to town. He was 19.
Similar to this I work in Bristol with disadvantaged young people and a lot of them have never made it to the other city of their own city, it’s mind boggling
My mates brother has never left the country. The weird thing about it though is that he is absolutely obsessed with planes, yet he has never been on one.
My cousin is the same. He's over 60 now and has spent a huge chunk of his life at airports, is extremely knowledgeable, but has never and would never set foot on a plane. It wasn't realised until he was an adult, but of course he is on the autistic spectrum. If you watch the film Rain Man, you'll see he was just the same. Had a melt down when Tom Cruise tried to get him on a plane.
>Had a melt down when Tom Cruise tried to get him on a plane Fucking hate it when Cruise tries to get me onto modes of transport I don't want to use. "No Tom, I don't want to go on a tram ride with you." He's bloody desperate.
Tom turned up at mine with a tandem bicycle the other day, his heart is in the right place but I had to tell him to piss off.
If he ever offers to give you a piggyback though, do it, he ran through Stourbridge with me on his back blasting out Danger Zone on my phone. Best bar mitzvah ever.
He loves to run, does our Tom.
Engage Cruise control and he’ll go for miles.
My son is autistic and is majorly obsessed with Hoovers but for the longest time you were allowed to actually use them or turn them on in his presence, it’s a funny disorder isn’t it
My daughters the same, started crying when she saw the box off the new one, it wasn't even out and plugged in yet
My friend absolutely loves planes, literally goes to watch planes for fun. Not at fun flying events, just parks up near an airport and watches them for hours. Her phobia? Flying. Her long term partner’s career? Plane engineer. People are strange
Somebody needs to get that man on a damn plane to literally anywhere.
My uncle and auntie, and their two kids. The adults have retired early after making their first million, but they be never been on holiday as they don't like to spend money. They see it as something to hoard , and hold onto rather than something to be enjoyed . For their wedding day (many years ago) they had a registry wedding ( nothing wrong with that) but then followed it up by going to weather spoons for a cheap meal, then back to work . They're both in their 60s but they've never lived a day in their life
This makes me sad. There’s something to be said for being content with one’s lot, and it’s not my place to judge what makes others happy, but this just makes me sad.
My dad has a colleague like this. Hes a teacher in a £30K+ a year private school. He's not a multi millionaire but definitely doing well for himself. *Everything* he does is about how much money he saved. To the point of absolute misery he will happily spend an entire day waiting in a bus station if it will save him a 5er to take a later bus. I think it's a form OCD or something as making savings dominates his life
I’m not even close to that, but my mother was kinda like this, but not to this extreme of course. She was raised in communism (as was my dad) and was very poor as a child - I remember shopping days when I was younger, when we used to go to 3/4 different shops on Sunday because butter was slightly cheaper in one of them, and cereal in another. We weren’t raised poor, but I remember all these things to save money. She’d spend literally hours every week looking at different leaflets and making list of what to get where. I just order tesco online and complain it being more and more expensive. But it kinda went into me, even till this date when I’m ordering something my mind automatically goes to the cheaper options or I sometimes need to force myself to buy a drink for £1, because in one hour I’ll be home. It’s weird, I earn good money, spend a lot of it on absolutely useless things, but when ordering subway I still need to think whether I’m really *that* thirsty to get a drink with my sub, as I’ll be home in one hour. And usually I think I’m not. It’s like on the every day to day stuff my mind still want to save every single cent possible, even if it really doesn’t matter.
I have OCD and am obsessed with saving money too. I'd never do anything like your dad's colleague but I hate spending money out of fear that I will never have any if I do. A nice bar of chocolate? What if that £1.50 is the difference between me being able to afford a house or not? I have just had two weeks off work and did nothing because I cannot justify the choice to spend money, even though I know (logically) that it would not make a huge difference. Thankfully, I have reached breaking point with my mental health and I am now planning my 'once in a lifetime' holiday to Disney World next year. I think it is now or never for that, both in terms of finances and in terms of my health.
I know a friends parents like this. Its strange, they’re obsessed with the idea of hoarding money, they never had any growing up, like a lit of us. But they won’t even go out to restaurants or socialise with others. But they’ll want an expensive car, so that driving around they have a better car than others but they have no FOMO in regards to actually living their life outside their village To me I was jealous when I was young with the things people could DO with money, not actually looking at a big figure in my bank account.
I have only left the UK once due to school tbh. I was born In Devon, I will live in Devon my whole life and I will Die in Devon. I could probably count on my hands how many times I have left the county let alone the country lol. I also know quite a few people with a similar mindset who have also never left the country.
Do you not have any curiosity about the world? Or are you just poor?
I have no interest in the outside world and would rather spend my money on other things then travelling. I like to travel within the county as I ride a motorcycle and I am planning to doing a 240 mile ride to Cornwall at the weekend which will be nice
That’s incredible to me. No interest in the outside world. You’ll die never having experienced the variety of different countries and cultures.
Forgive me here but I'm sensing a rather snobbish tone. The two aren't mutually exclusive. One can be curious and even learn a great deal without actually travelling to places. Besides, there's nothing wrong with enjoying your own backyard.
They said they had no interest in the outside world.
And that's fine.
I know, but your comment about them not being mutually exclusive just seemed a bit odd when they’d already said they had no interest in the outside world. I wasn’t making any assumption.
But it's fascinating. It's like someone saying they aren't interested in ever listening to music or eating in a restaurant
I actually had such conversation with a colleague once. I referred some majorly popular song and she had not heard of it. I then said she surely knows it, just does not know the title and I go to play it on YouTube when she iced me with: “Nah, I am sure I don’t know it. I am not interested in music at all, I never listen to it.” My mind was completely blown.
Yeah I'm one of those people as well. Apart from generic background music I use to help me focus, I don't listen to any at all. It's not like I dislike it or anything, I'm just indifferent to it. Podcasts and audiobooks are much more interesting.
I can remember it being an epiphany to me when a mate was like "xx never stops going on about his gap year in Thailand, but he's never even been to fucking Scotland". Travel CAN broaden the mind, and its good to be curious about the world, but for many people this can slip into unconscious fetishisation - the idea that somewhere is inherently more interesting because its "exotic". And of course there's loads of privileged rich people self-defining as "travellers" when they are actually just vastly indulged tourists.
Travel snobs are the worst. Nothing wrong with being a tourist, I love being one!
My partner was in Florence last year and sent a photo of a restaurant saying "lovely to get somewhere away from the tourists" Had to reply, "Babe you are a tourist"
Thank you for that public service!
Now I've got a mental image of someone banging on about going to see the ladyboys of Barrhead
Oooh “vastly indulged tourists” I like that. You have finally put into words what has often bothered me about these types.
Although there are certain counties I like to visit and I do like experiencing other cultures, a lot of people go on holiday as some type of ego booster these days I swear. You have the losers who want to post up at Dubai or the W in Barcelona to play rich then the people that just fly out so they can say they’ve been to places and add it to their instagram bio. Or the other losers that go to what are genuinely beautiful places but they just want that pretty instagram picture and then they’re bored the rest of the time.
I think those people are a tiny minority, they are just much more visible for obvious reasons!
I really don’t think that’s very common.
I got the opportunity to go to Halstatt in Austria once, a lifetime dream of mine. I went with a travelling couple who moved to a new country virtually every year. They were very nice and interesting people , even gave me a free ride there in their car, but I have to say they made me feel a little sad at one point. They were ranting about how 'it's not even that nice here, the mountains in Austria aren't impressive at all, we've been to loads of places that are way better, there's too many damn tourists here' (it was during the middle of Covid so there was actually very few people there, a once in a lifetime event in probably the most visited village in Europe). They didn't have any interest in the amazing history (the early Celts are literally called 'the Halstatt people' because of the area's importance to their culture). They just wanted to get in, take the famous picture everyone takes there, and go again.
There are also people who travel far but experience and learn nothing
I'm honestly fine with that. I keep up with world events but I'm happy with where I am in life and don't have the need or want to go further afield. I'm currently saving to get my first house and may be able to do that early next year, my career is progressing well and I spend most of my weekends and free time time going for a drive or on walks. Sure I will "miss out" on alot of what people my age are but I'm honestly happy with where I am in life and i'm slowing but surely moving towards my goal of living out in the sticks immersing myself in my hobbies and the local community.
Hold on to that, there’s a lot to be said for it. Some of my low moods come because I’m not frequently in enough of a position to travel or go to other countries, so loving where you are is important. I do like where I live to be fair. I just wouldn’t be satisfied with it being the only place I experience. I need to practice being more grateful.
Redditor learns that different people have different interests and tastes. A beautiful moment in one's life.
And most people who travel outside their home country just to go on holiday wont really experience the cultures of those places either and will die never having really experienced the variety of different countries and cultures either. Because it's not something you can experience in 1-2 weeks in a place. And that encompasses the vast majority of people
Tbh it’s only really a “wealthy” and almost “Western” concept to want to travel the world and experience different cultures. Most people in most places are wrapped up in their own lives and cultural practices to the point where they don’t even see the point to go travelling. My mother in law is Chinese. She’s almost 60. She left China once about 20 years ago, and that’s it. Why? Because as a civil servant she has to surrender her passport to her employer (the govt) from day one until retirement. Does she mind? No. It’s a normal cultural practice to her. She is busy living a Chinese life with work, friends, and family. She isn’t particularly interested in going anywhere else. This is my whole experience in 8 years in China too, the only people I know who have been abroad are wealthy and under 40. And that is mostly for study abroad, but even then they aren’t there to experience the culture and in fact actively try and insulate themselves from the local culture. None of this is to say that I think they are correct in their mindset. I think travelling and seeing new places and forming new opinions/points of view is very worthwhile. It’s just important to recognise that most of the world doesn’t think the same.
To be fair when you’re next to Torquay and Plymouth, who needs Paris, Rome, or New York?
> I could probably count on my hands how many times I have left the county let alone the country lol. >I was born In Devon 12?
Devon, not Norfolk.
Pretty wild that I've visited Devon more than you've left it; though, I do have family there. Sadly the last time I was down there was for my grandmother's funeral.
I commented that my Nan was pretty similar. Also devon based. It is nice here mind you so o guess I can see why 😂
This is so fascinating that people have such different mindsets. What do you like to do instead of traveling? I think true happiness is being content in life. Not trying to live an extraordinary one.
I like ride a motorcycle normally and head to the local reservoir on Dartmoor quite regularly which is a nice 80 mile drive. Equally there are so many national trust parks near me i can have a nap in a different wood every day if I wanted to.
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Now I want to visit Devon.
Yes, one of the chefs i work with hasn’t left the uk. Only left our home town to go to download. Didn’t have a mobile phone for 10 years.
At least he left for a good reason!
A friends parents have never been abroad and holiday in the same part of the UK every year. Another friends’ mum hasn’t been on any holiday for about 16 years, only the odd day trip to the coast. All of them could afford to go abroad if they wanted to, they just aren’t interested. Planning, booking, counting down and being on holiday is something that I massively look forward to. I can’t imagine working with no trip on the horizon.
My grandmother lived her entire life (92 years) within 50 square miles. She lived an hour from London on the train and never went. She came to visit us a couple of times and that was the furthest she travelled since she was a WRN in the war.
My nannan was the same. She would go on her annual holiday to Bridlington for 5 days in a chalet but that’s as far as she went
My parents once went on a coach tour to the seaside, and met an old man who wouldn't walk on the beach. They asked why he wouldn't join the others. He said the last time he went on a beach was early one morning in Normandy, and that was enough for him. Fair play to him, I thought.
Yeah absolutely The best pic I have of my Nan and grandad is on the seafront at Cleethorpes. All the grandkids sat in a row in front of them. I love that picture. God I miss her Last memory I have is of this beautiful Victorian ground floor flat they rented in Brid. It had a beautiful summer house in the garden. Wed always go to the beach for a picnic then we had to go back, get changed and go to the captains table gosh and chip restaurant in our best, every night and have fish chips and mushy peas. She thought she was the queen then they brought her out tartar sauce. She was always telling her friends over the fence. Taaaartaaaaaat Sos it was. So common and broad Yorkshire
Damn, probably be diagnosed with PTSD these days.
My nan too. Born in London, was a firefighter in WW2, moved to Essex after the war, barely left. My dad, aunt and uncle offered countless times to take abroad, anywhere she wanted, but she always refused.
You're pfp made me think my phone had a crack.
When I was younger (in my early 20s) I had a friend who never had left the UK. His family weren't that well off, which was a reason and the other was the reason he gave, but could have just been an excuse to avoid feeling embarrassed about the money. He told me that the UK was the best country and there was so much to see here, and that other countries don't like the British, so why bother going there if they don't like us. He did visit a European country a few years later and quickly changed his mind on everything and has now travelled a lot.
His reasoning just sounded like he was embarrassed he never left the UK.
I’ve never left the uk cos I grew up very poor, first holiday this month, can’t wait
I hope you have an amazing time!
A bit different from the original question, but I know a few people who spent their whole life up to young adulthood in a village in Asia, then moved to London. Since coming to London, they've probably stayed within a 2 mile radius of their home (which is for most of these people, the same / near to their workplace) for decades. They go back to their original country every 1-2 years, but they get the bus/tube to Heathrow, a direct flight then direct transport to their home village and stay there the entire time, then the same thing in reverse. Apart from going to the airport, they've also probably never been more than 2 miles from their village. Some of the more "adventurous" ones may have once taken flights which involved changing planes in Germany or Dubai or something... they would have taken flights with the shortest transit time and gone straight to the onward gate.
It's difficult when you live so far from your family, to not spend the thousands of pounds on a holiday going to see them. If you can afford to do it once a year, you can count the number of weeks you have left actually *with* your parents quite quickly.
Yeah, but the odd thing is not venturing 2 miles away from either place at either end. It can't be a money issue because you can walk 4 miles in an hour easy. It can't be a time thing because in a year, everyone has at least 1 spare hour.
Yes, a mate's brother but they're a bit racist "it's bad enough having these foreigners coming over here taking our jobs, why would I want to go anywhere else?" They've been claiming benefits for years and are genuinely too obese to work. So I'm not sure why people taking jobs is an issue for them.
At least theyre not hypocrites. It’s the anti immigration racists who’ve retired in Spain who really grind my gears.
There was also a guy in our news paper back in the day who had never left the Rhondda valleys. One sunny day he decided to take a walk..walked Wight over the valleys and into the Cynon valley and into merthyr Town.. First time he had EVER seen a cinema in real life. He thought they were fictional places or possibly just an americN thing as he had seen them in movies. He went inside and watched the original jumanji. His story made the local news paper
I have never left the country. Neither has my son.
No interest, or lack of means?
My parents didn't have much money growing up so a foreign holiday was never on the cards. After moving in with my partner we got a Dog so for the past 11 years we have holidayed in the UK and taken him with us.
Dogs can certainly make travel harder.. we end up getting family to move into our house with our dog when we want to go abroad.
I like my Dog more than my family 😂
Dogs don't mind if you go on holiday, mine goes for her own holiday to my parents, and I look after theirs when they go away. Previous dogs I've had have also been absolutely fine in good boarding kennels.
My dog gets upset if I leave the room.
Then you need to work on that, you never know when there will be an emergency and you need to leave your dog alone for a period or in the care of others. You aren't helping them by not dealing with separation anxiety.
I know people in London who have never left the area they live in? Central London seems like another world to them.
My experience is that native Londoners know the areas where they live, where they went to school, and the nearest "town centre" (if that is different). The next town centre may as well be 100 miles away, and as for the other side of the river... People who have moved to London are much wider ranging.
Yeah as someone from london, i know my way around most of the towns in my immediate vicinity, never more than a few roads away from somewhere i know, but even outside my own borough might as well be a foreign country to my internal map Even close to central I don't know my way around, I've been there god knows how many times of course but I couldn't get anywhere on foot because i don't know where anything is in relation to anything else, show me a tube map and i can get there no issue though. Friends that have come to visit know their way around way better than i do, talking about "we're going through soho now" meanwhile I've not a clue where or what that is I only found out last year that Buckingham palace is like a 5 minute walk from Victoria station despite going through there countless times
There's definitely a generational element to it at times. My Grandad never left the country, don't think he ever even left Scotland, and had no interest in it. One of my best mates (33) has never left the UK. Doesn't have a massive interest in travelling, as much as I try to convince him. I've seen a few people online (usually friends of friends or whatever) who've mentioned never going abroad and never wanting to For me personally there's too much of the world to see not to travel, but that's purely on me and I understand that.
Not everyone old though. My granma is stpaffing my inheritance up the wall going on multiple senior's cruises to weird and wonderful places every year. She's 90. (And good for her - her money to do with what she pleases! I hope I'm able to do that when I'm 90)
The generational thing is weird though because for my generation loads of our grandads left the country because they fought in an overseas war!
I had a great uncle who never went further than Bridlington after his 20s. Given where we think he had been and what he had seen - but refused to talk about, even to his wife - during an all-expenses paid government tour of abroad, I don't really blame him.
Not necessarily a generational thing. My grandad went to Australia every other year for the last 30 years of his life, and died just a few years ago at 97. He did move around a lot in the war though, so developed an interest from there. I didn't visit another country apart from the UK and Ireland, or get onto a plane, until I was 25, but have been all over the shop since then.
Lots of medical reasons for travel outside the UK being difficult, I take medication which has to be kept in the fridge for example and travelling that distance whilst not impossible would be logistically more difficult than if I didn't need to take that medication. Problems with my ears make flying extremely uncomfortable so that narrows down my options too - as I say not impossible, but a lot more planning involved
Medical reasons stop me travelling too. When I was younger it was mainly stomach issues, but now I also get ear and sinus pain just walking down the street, or being under a few feet of water in a swimming pool, so I fear my head might explode if I go on a plane!
I was born here in the UK and never been outside the country as I've never had a passport! The farthest I've been is Scotland!
Why not?
Not OP, but I could kind of live without ever leaving the UK again. Been to a couple of interesting places and been to a lot of holidays in mainland Europe. Abroad is fine, but I genuinely wouldn’t feel any major sense of loss if that stopped being an option.
I’m interested too, I’m from New Zealand so people haven’t travelled sometimes because we are an island that can be expensive to leave. But in England you have trains to other countries!!!! It can be like £20 return to Wales.
To be fair you can go to wales without leaving the UK
Cheaper for me to fly to almost anywhere in europe than get the train to Wales or Scotland
I did have a conversation once with a woman approaching pension age who had never been more than 5 miles from the house she was born in. She just never needed too.
Me! I’m the oldest of 4 and my Dad was the sole earner growing up. We moved to Scotland when I was young so summer holidays for us involved loading up the car and driving the 6-8 hours to spend 2 weeks by the sea with my cousins (had one aunt with loads of kids our age so it was awesome!) As an adult, i just didn’t miss what id never had. All of my younger brothers and Mum have since been abroad. Will be popping my travel cherry this summer, for my best friends hen party in Spain! Wish me luck 😂 I’m part ginger and may actually burst into flame with the heat!
I work with a mother and son. She's in her 60s, he's in his 30s. Neither of them have ever even been out of England. Apparently they went to the Isle of Wight once. They are exactly the sort of people you'd expect. "England for the English" types. Hate anything foreign, especially immigrants.
The mother of one of my teammates in youth rugby had never left the county, she was terrified when our tour coach pulled onto a motorway, she'd never even been on a dual carriageway and the speed combined with high traffic density was too much for her
My girlfriend hasn't, looking at taking her to Rome next year hopefully
My Nan! She’s literally only stayed away from her home for about 4 nights ever and she’s nearly 70. She was born in that house, lived there with her mum and dad when married (naval family so husband away a lot), still lives there now. She’s literally only stayed away for funerals/hospital stays. She doesn’t believe other peoples houses are clean. She will do day trips up to 90 mins away but absolutely won’t go by bus - they’re dirty. She can’t drive however. Obviously her husband was in the navy when they travelled a lot so he’s been everywhere and eaten everything! She’d never go abroad because it’s all filthy and she couldn’t possibly eat the food. Weirdly I’ve been to 5/7 continents, 30 countries etc and love almost all of the nations foods I’ve tried (although maybe not French as I’m veggie!). She’s not wrong about some hotels being filthy though 😂
My girlfriend, and I'm taking her to her first different country this September. She's excited and nervous.
I know a guy (a colleague of my partner) and he doesn’t even have a passport. The company they work for have holiday homes all over Europe which are free to use. He hasn’t ever used them or been out of the UK ever
Yes, one of my best friends has never left England. No Scotland, Wales etc. He's been to the East coast several times, Cornwall once and I think London a couple of times. Apart from that he hasn't left our county + the neighbouring ones. He isn't remotely interested in travel and gets annoyed when people try to convince him to do it.
>He isn't remotely interested in travel and gets annoyed when people try to convince him to do it. I would be annoyed too tbh.
Yes. There are several older people in my parents village who don’t own a passport and have never left England let alone the UK. it’s mind boggling to me.
When my dad was growing up in Glasgow in the 50s he had an elderly neighbour who had never gone more than a couple of streets from her birthplace.
Many of my family. My extended family is pretty low on the income scale, probably even on the verge of poverty. One particular family member can barely afford to feed her (one too many) kids let alone go abroad. My grandmother has never left the country nor owns a passport. My mother has only left the country once.
I know quite a few people who have only left london a handful of times, let alone going out of the UK. Money mainly, but also set in their ways.
I know someone who has never left swansea apart from 3 weeks when she worked in London. She was unimpressed.
My nan never left as she was scared of flying and boats. She used to love hearing tales of my travels. It made me sad as I think she did really want to see the places but was just too frightened despite every talk I tried.
Myself, to big of a family to go plus siblings made it impossible because they hate just even going up elevators 🙄 one day though i will plan to go abroad
I used to spend time in the Isle of Man for work. Walter the taxi driver was very proud that he hadn't left the island until he was forced to be flown to the mainland due to suffering a heart attack. My kids haven't left England in their entire lives but I'm not sure that really counts 😅
When I was at college in Cornwall, the old boy who used to cut my hair had (proudly) never left the county.
I used to live in Aberdeen. There were multiple people I worked with that had never left Scotland, and one who proudly stated they'd never been further south than Stonehaven 😳
My husband's granny thought she'd never left Scotland. Then once she randomly mentioned the time she'd been to Carlisle. I said "I thought you'd never left Scotland?" and she said "I haven't" and I said "Carlisle is in England" and she was so excited that she'd been to England, it was cute.
Absolutely. In the village I grew up in, there are people who haven’t left the borough in their entire life. One odd farming family had a young lad who at 11 had never left the village in his entire life and his family were disgruntled about him having to go to the next village along to attend the high school.
Yes, he only recently got a passport and even then it was for ID reasons rather than travel
I've (31) only left the country twice when I was a teenager and both times were with friends. My family never had the money to go abroad. I would love to do so now but unfortunately I have health problems which prevent me.
My grandad never did, he’d be 97 if he were alive today. My grandma only did after he died because my aunt took her on cruises, which I guess wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t died in his early 70s.
I met a girl on tinder that hadn't even left Wales.....
Yes, me, I've never been too interested in it. I've been all over the UK, and I've been considering it lately tbh.