The return of 1970s-style holidays? Count me in
WHO hasn’t indulged in a little wanderlust daydreaming recently? Perhaps you’ve imagined being teleported to somewhere nice with warm sands and gently lapping waves. Or time-travelled in the mind’s eye to bygone days when a week in a caravan at Ayr was the height of sophistication.
If the latter stokes happy memories, then the era of travel being ushered in post-coronavirus (granted, we’re still a long, long way from that) could be the very dab. Holidays as many of us know them may be off the table for the foreseeable future. Certainly, when it comes to foreign climes.
Scottish hotel boss Russell Imrie told The Herald last week that he believes when it comes to our travel habits, it will almost be like going “back to the 1970s”, when we all jumped in our cars as a family to drive to the seaside, the forests, the coasts and the countryside.
“The era of cheap air travel, and international travel, is going to take so long to come back that we are going to be having breaks that will look familiar to our parents, and not the generation that is used to travelling today,” he said.
Financial cost aside, the idea of being crammed into an aircraft cabin, hurtling through the skies cheek by jowl with hundreds of other humans, then being shuttled to hotels with tightly-packed sun loungers and jostling elbows at the all-youcan-eat buffet, is one fraught with difficulty at present.
Ditto for cruise ships. If you’ve ever been at sea when someone takes ill in a public area, the crack team response from the crew is testament to all you need to know about the spread of infection aboard these gargantuan floating cities. There’s about as much chance of me going to Mars, quite frankly.
Once lockdown eases and, if all goes well, we are then able to start heading off on jaunts again, you could do a lot worse than a 1970s-style holiday. Ayr, Largs, Troon, Rothesay, Saltcoats, Dunoon, Dunbar, Aberdour, Burntisland.
The giddy excitement (and muffled curses) as the family car is packed to the rafters. Trying to convince the squabbling weans in the back to cease hostilities long enough to eat cheese sandwiches unwrapped from tinfoil, washed down with a swig of diluting juice.
Playing endless “I spy,” having to pee in a layby and getting your knees (or worse) stung by nettles as someone asks for the millionth time: “Are we there yet?”
The Kiss Me Quick hats might be out – social distancing and all that – but there’s something wonderfully joyous about stripping everything right back and returning to what truly matters: quality time spent with loved ones.