Hi
I dont think you ever forget your 1st holiday abroad. My daughter was about 7yrs old and we were able to afford to go to Alcudia for two weeks. I will always remember the feeling of the hot air when I got off the plane and the whole new experience of another country. Never stopped since, try to go to different places each year although we do tend to return every few years to Crete or Algarve.
M

My first holiday abroad was when I was about 21 or 22 years old. Quite a late starter really. We booked a week all inclusive to Majorca because it was our first time flying, but wished we had booked two weeks. We had the best time. I managed to burn my bottom and could barely sit down for 2 days (floating on a lilo in the sea on the 2nd day and didnt turn over) but still loved every minute of it. Came home with the best tan ever and full of beans enough to convince my mum and dad to book a holiday too. We have holidayed abroad every year since (apart from the year my daughter was born). We did return to the same hotel again, but it wasnt the same.

I remember my first holiday abroad when I was 9. The main outstanding memories were of feeling very grown up, sitting at the hotel bar with my white handbag, eating doughnuts in the morning. Every evening there was an hotel band that always used to sing 'cuantanamera'(sp?)

Helen T (my sis) spent most of the holiday going up and down in the hotel lift because at 14 yrs of age, imagined she was in love with the bell boy working there

The first holiday I really remember and had the best time was in the Cotswolds. I had a green handkerchief dress (off the shoulder) which I thought I looked the bees knees in. I also had my first ever bum bag , and spent the evenings on slot machines in the arcade that took 1p pieces The day was spent sitting by the lake with my crayons and colouring book watching dad and my brother fishing. I think I must have been about 8yrs old

Our first holiday abroad was to Florida in 1992 oh how I loved it. Went with my parents ( mum found out she was pregnant day before we flew out), my auntie, her hubby and 2 kids and my other uncle (God rest his sole)

Air con in the car driving around that was a novelty, and the massive Wal-mart.

Helen

The day was spent sitting by the lake with my crayons and colouring book watching dad and my brother fishing. I think I must have been about 8yrs old

I wonder how many kids would be happy with that in the modern times?

fwh

Exactly FWH and she says that was one of her best holidays!! I can confirm that - we were on a very basic caravan site which centred on a large lake. It had an old fashioned arcade where all the machines took pennies. They were the old type machines where you pulled the handle, betted on horses, rolled the pennies etc. It's strange, but we did quite a few nice things on that holiday - ice skating, cinema, leisure centre in Swindon etc, but she loved taking the occasional table from the caravan outside, and drawing pictures.

Only draw back was when the geese came I had to make a run for it back inside

Our first holiday abroad as a family was to costa brava travelling by coach , sis in law had done it the year before with friends and advised us to take plenty of food , there we were waiting for the ferris coach to appear , me armed with one of those big check laundry bags full of food and drink , i could have fed the whole coach . On the way home 2 weeks later they showed the video of the sound of music , my eldest daughter sang all the songs she must have thought she was auditioning for a part . a few weeks after we got home i was out shopping and a store security officer stopped me and asked me how the singing nun was and did she get the part .......... i looked at him strange thinking what the heck is he on about, and he told me he was sat in front of my daughter on the coach coming back from spain .

I can't remember my first holiday abroad as I was about 6 months old! The first holiday I vaguely remember was when I was about 3 and we went to Spain, Santa Suzanna I think. I can definitely remember going to Tunisia when I was 4, lots of sand and camels

we lived abroad when I was younger as Dad was in the army..so we often had trips out around Germany and little breaks in Switzerland and Holland. TBH, I didn't really apreciate them as much as I probably should have done as I was under 5 and all the scenery seemed the same.
My favourite ones were when we came back here to visit my grandparents and my nan, mum and my aunties would take me and my brother to Cleethorpes and Blackpool. I used to love riding on the little train from one end of Cleethorpes front to the other..and then me and my brother would be armed with a bucket and spade each and various other cheap plastic sand moulds and we would find a spot on the beach for a picnic.

I used to go camping with my parents back in the 1960s. We went all over Europe, or at least mainly overland to Italy with various routes over the Alps, once to Spain and once to Istanbul.

Dad had an Austin A40 and I was crammed in a corner of the back seat surrounded by camping equipment. I used to be allowed to take a little vanity case with Puffin books saved up from my 7/6d WH Smith birthday tokens, puzzle books, paper and crayons etc. Later the car changed, and he built a wooden trailer, and in the 70s we had a caravan.

Back in the 1960s, I remember Mum taking such delicacies as tubes of condensed milk, tins of butter and tins of stewed steak and Spam! We were told not to eat the local ice cream, and Mum would wash the veg and fruit in a solution of potassium permanganate.

We did eat lots of the local foods of course, many of which were not commonly eaten in the UK in those days. I particularly remember fresh watermelon and peaches, crusty baguettes and croissants, huge tomatoes, nutella, little Italian bisuits with red or green glace cherries on top, real spaghetti (not the tinned type!).

Campsites in those days didn't have electricity supplied to the tents, we used to get fresh ice every day for the coolbox, and Dad made a little lamp with a torch bulb that ran off the car battery! (later we had a Camping Gaz light). I hated the squat-down loos with automatic flushes, and sometimes the washbasins would be like a trough with a row of taps, and you would see somebdoy else's spat-out toothpaste sailing past your section of trough! No hot water either.

But of course I saw some amazing sights on our travels, Venice, Paris, Rome, Pisa, Pompeii, Istanbul, the Alps, Bayeux tapestry, umpteen museums, and of course the towns and villages, the people, and the beaches with warm sea - so different from the English seaside!

Austin A40 - now there's nostalgia! My uncle had one new, I can remember the reg 2145 LG because the number was the same as mum's Co-op divi number! Old, sad and going off topic............

But I'm really envious of you going through the Alps in the days before the motorways changed things.

Acorncup, your dad must have been a trend setter. Thats sounds fab, we've done a couple of coach holidays to Spain. The camaraderie is brilliant. I know what you mean about those squatty loos, still cant use them now, loose balance, so always head for disabled lol.

I'm one of the later Med holidaymakers. 1986, I'm in my mid 30's, one week full board Costa Brava. First time I felt I'd really HAD a holiday! £116 per person for myself and OH, daughter for £59! Can't ge them prices now! We even used to make the beds and tidy round. The poor maid had to undo everything we'd done and do it HER way!

Does anyone remember the freebie postcards of the plane you could pick up from one of those wall-mounted display units at the front of the cabin? Not sure if all airlines did this, but I definitely remember Lufthansa having them.

Oh, yeah! My daughter loved collecting them! All the different aircraft in the airlines fleet.

Not just me then! Can't remember anymore if I actually collected them all though.

Just got back from Germany - Lufthansa still do the freebie postcards!