HOLIDAYS AT HOME ARE GREAT
Airport queues and terrorism alerts mean that the lure of a holiday abroad is not what it was, as JAMES DELINGPOLE has recently discovered
IF YOU’RE reading this beneath a sunbrella in Alicante or by a pool in Tuscany, or even on an empty beach on a pretty Greek island, well, I’m sorry but back in Britain we’re not nearly as jealous as we should be. Yes of course we appreciate how wonderful the Continent is in summer: all that guaranteed sunshine, artisan olive oil and cheeky vino collapso. But we know what hell you had to go through to get there and also – sorry to remind you – what you’re going to have to endure before you get home.
For example: the terrifying moment in the hire car return area (presuming you ever managed to find it) when you’re wondering whether they’ll notice that tiny dent and, if so, how much they’re going to charge you; the long line for the security check in a fetid foreign airport; the fruitless quest for vaguely edible affordable food to keep the kids going while you’re waiting for your delayed flight; then later the dreaded arrival of the credit card bill which reminds you how much more expensive foreign holidays are now that a pound’s worth roughly the same as the euro.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve just come back from a family holiday in the Med and I’m certainly not complaining. But every now and then – as I stewed in the airport waiting area or lay awake listening out for the whine of mosquitos – the thought did cross my mind that we might have had just as much fun for a fraction of the price if we’d gone for our usual staycation instead.
Staycation – in case you wondered – is the fancy name for taking your holiday in Britain instead of going abroad. It’s all the rage, apparently, with an estimated 2.5million more Britons choosing to take their holidays at home this year than last year. And that was before the fall in the pound made holidays abroad 10 per cent more expensive, before the delays for car ferry passengers trying to embark from Dover last week and stuck in queues without water for up to 15 hours.
Clearly I must be ahead of the curve: in my family staycationing is what we’ve done pretty much every summer for the past 15 or so years, partly because I’m a cheapskate, partly because I really can’t be doing with the hassle of dragging whining kids through airports but mainly because on a glorious summer’s day there is simply nowhere more beautiful anywhere in the world than the British countryside.
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OUR usual destination – till unfortunately it got sold – was a rental cottage in the middle of nowhere in the Welsh borders. It was brilliant. Absolutely nothing to spend your money on except Welsh cakes, bara brith and maybe a day’s pony-trekking and absolutely nothing to do except go on long hilltop walks with incredible views of the Brecon Beacons or go swimming in our favourite spot on the River Wye.
This is how summer holidays used to be in the good old days before iPads and Pokemon Go, when “abroad” was an impossible luxury for more than a tiny minority and when kids had to make their own entertainment. Not that I’d push it too far – there’s not a parent in their right mind who’d take on a holiday rental that didn’t have internet access.
But even with wifi and mod cons I still think there’s something pleasing, rugged, honest and oldfashioned about a British holiday. Like a bracing country walk or an icy dip it feels like a tonic for the soul.
Ah yes but what about the famously unreliable British summer weather? Well I’d argue that’s part of the fun. It keeps you on your toes because you never know from one day to the next whether you’ll be on the beach enjoying the heat or trapped indoors by the rain playing Monopoly. And it means that on those rare occasions when the sun does come out you feel so joyously grateful it’s as if you’ve just won the lottery.
But sun isn’t essential. Another of my favourite holiday spots for a period of years was the Scottish Highlands not far from the Queen’s beloved Balmoral. Some people think it slightly odd that the Royal Family’s favourite holiday destination should be a midge-infested wilderness where the sun rarely shines, even in August.
Me, though, I get it totally. There’s nothing quite like the camaraderie you experience taking a shivery picnic with family and friends on the Scottish heather moorland – a dazzling patchwork quilt of greens, browns and purples – as tiny, near-invisible insects eat you alive. Nor are there many masochistic thrills that quite beat the pleasure of stripping off under that grey August sky and plunging like Bear Grylls into a bone-chillingly cold Highland burn.
And if the weather gets truly unbearable the great thing about staycations is that you can just pack up the car and within a few hours be safely back home surrounded by all your creature comforts. Which you certainly can’t do when you’re abroad – you’re stuck there for the duration. Unless perhaps, as seems to be becoming increasingly common these days, there’s a political upheaval or a terrorist incident which requires an emergency airlift.
Yes, I’ve saved the best reason for holidaying in Britain till last: you feel so much safer, don’t you? There are no deadly creatures to eat you when you’re swimming or bite you on your picnic; the motorways – unlike the ones in Sicily where I’ve just been – don’t look like B-roads and our drivers aren’t insane; if you fall sick or have an accident there’s the NHS; the water’s safe to drink out of a tap; you’re not going to be thrown in prison for unwittingly taking a photograph in a prohibited area; and then of course there’s terrorism.
I can’t be the only one who suspects that the era of relatively safe, comfortable, carefree foreign travel is fast coming to an end. It was great while it lasted. Thanks to rising incomes, mass tourism and the post-war peace dividend perhaps two blessed generations of Britons were granted unprecedented freedom to see the world, broaden their minds and improve their palates.
But not any more. Airport security and the fear of being blown up mid-air has removed every last hint of glamour from flying. Islamist terror – made worse by mass migration, open borders and collapsing economies – means that even when you get there you’re still not safe, as many hundreds of travellers have discovered to their cost from Tunisia, Nice and Paris to Turkey and the Sinai.
THAT’S not to say in Britain we’re immune. But we will at least have the consolation of being able to control our own borders – thanks, EU referendum result! – and of being separated from the Continental arms supply and terrorism chain by the English Channel. Our island status has kept us secure and independent through the centuries and continues to do so today.
This is what’s so great about being British. Our country may not be perfect but it happens to be so much better than anybody else’s. The Lakes; the Devon coast; the Welsh hills; our pubs; our museums and galleries; our fish’n’chip shops – there they all are, just sitting on our doorstep. Time to get to know them a bit better...