Holidays are a pretty high priority to me, I have had the same car for 15years now and would much rather put the money towards visiting somewhere interesting than buy a new one. I think I am very lucky being able to go on these journeys. My mother would have loved to have travelled but never had the money to travel further than continental Europe.
When you visit a country where the majority of the population are very poor and see how they live you get to realise just how lucky we in the west are. My fifteen year old car would be an absolute luxury to some of the population of countries I have visited.

You're so right. we should consider it a luxury that we can visit all these different countries. You don't have to look too far to find people who aren't as fortunate.
My husband had never been out of great Britain until we got married. HIs first flight was when our children were 4 and 1 years of age and we've been somewhere every year since- they're now 24 and 21.
Eventhough we enjoy typical beach holidays we always like to delve into the area where the locals live. We've seen Gypsies in the hills of Corfu, beggars in Bulgaria and really poor people in the Dominican Republic. We took plenty of things for the people of the Dom Rep and the appreciation on their faces was worth seeing.

My hubby was 38 when he first went abroad and like Shirley H we've been going every year since. I chose to stay at home while my children were small so we never had much money to spare for holidays, but we always managed a little camping trip or a few days in a caravan. We enjoy a night out at the weekend but don't have an extravagant lifestyle, & recently have been able to afford an occasional spring or Autumn short break as well as our main holiday. You don't have to go abroad to look for poverty . When my daughter was 14 we left her with my parents for the 1st time for us to go to London. Our room backed onto another hotel where there were 2 girls around her age sleeping on a mattress in the back doorway. In the morning they were foraging in the hotel bin for their breakfast. While in Zante we saw a lady with a newborn baby begging on the pavement while 2 other children were asleep on rags. Also mothers sending 6 & 7 year old girls to sit on men's laps in tavernas, then running back with money, which was quickly spent on cans of beer. We quickly wised up to this & took sweets out for the children. In Tallinn we saw disabled people sitting outside Mc Donalds, and in Mexico people queued for days on the off chance of a day's work. All in all no we don't know how lucky we are.!!

Whilst we no longer tend to holiday in relatively new, undeveloped holiday destinations, we always used to find the vast difference between the 4&5 star holiday complexes and the local villages and ghettos very disturbing.I recall driving through Cairo and witnessing families living in total squalor right next door to marble 5* palaces.I recall saying at the time that,if a large multi-national consortium can afford to build massive marble hotels, they should be made to upgrade the immediate area to,at least,acceptable standards of hygeine and safety. Within a few days of my saying that,there was a small earthquake and we saw,on t.v., pictures of those very slums totally destroyed whilst the hotels remained unscathed.
In the Dominican Republic,the difference between the luxury we had in our hotel and the utter poverty in the surrounding area really affected us and made us feel guilty.We had researched the destination before going and took with us a ridiculous amount of pencils for the children; we couldn't believe how grateful a five-year-old could be for a pencil and the children were delighted that a school was going to open soon,only a four mile walk away from them !!
It's true to say that, before these experiences, we had never fully understood the phrase 'travel broadens the mind', but,since then,we've always tried to appreciate the things that we tend to take for granted.
There's not a lot we can do now that we holiday generally on the Algarve, but we won't buy things like fruit at the supermarket if we can get it from a small roadside stall in the countryside outside town.

We live in a small terraced house with a really small mortgage and have the opportunity to have holidays unlike some people i know with huge mortgages and have to settle for pulling there caravans around the land! Id rather spend money on holidays than spend money on the house
We once visited the Dom Rep and as we drove through villages we witnessed women washing there clothes in the rivers and I couldn't believe the corrugated iron huts were actually houses. It was very humbling.

The most humbling place I have ever visited was Cambodia, the number of beggars, people without limbs and people living in the most extreme poverty was quite shocking , they have been through the most appalling circumstances in the Pol Pot regime, I found the whole experience enriched my life and I would love to return there someday to do something positive to help the children there.

I usually have 3-4 holidays a year but always take late deals.I also spend a lot of time at my static caravan but as its home from home I dont class it as a holiday.We also dog/house sit for friend at the other end of the country for 3 weeks a year.I would be happy taking a camping holiday if my husband would agree!.I have been in places during my travels that make me appreciate a roof over my head.

Hi Sagres! We also travelled through Cairo en route to the pyramids & sphinx. What we really didn't understand was how people living in hovels still had satellite tv -did you come across this.?

Hi Helen.
We were given to understand that the satelite dishes on the roofs of the apartment shells actually belonged to the hotels next door, but were placed on the apartment blocks because they were higher, so gave better reception.It must have been pure Hell for the 5* guests after the earthquake when Sky Sports went down with the neighbouring slum !!

I work hard all year, put money towards my next holiday which I am doing right now for 2008, as well as paying up holiday I put away my spending money.

everything else in my live comes second, bill, decoration of flat when I feel like it. Dont eat much but I can get by.

its so reassuring to hear others of the same opinion as me! In my neighbourhood everyone appears to decorate all the time. Everyone has a better car( and usually 2 or 3!) but I am certain I am doing the right thing for me.

My daughter and 9 student friends are about to go to Kenya for 7 weeks to volunteer in an ophanage in Kenya. They have organised everything and paid for the trip themselves plus raised over £8000 to furnish a new building. They all have huge student loans and none of us parents are rich. I think it is so amazing that they are giving up their time to help these kids and try to provide them with a better life. Karen

Karen
yes that is great isn't it? It reminds me of the only positive thing we saw during our 3 hour tour of the hurricane disaster area( one which the locals all wanted the tourists to go on)- students from all over the States were giving up their breaks and helping build a "village" in one of the worst affected areas.

Isn't it great to hear of youngsters who are doing something positive in this world. We here so much about how much trouble the kids of today are. We need to remember they're not all like that . Most are good kids who deserve a chance. Well done you lot & good luck with your venture.!!!

I have been really skint before in my first few years as a single parent, most of the money i earned went on basic survival for me and Gav and I could barely afford to eat never mind holiday..but I managed to take him away for a week up to Edinburgh to stay with his Dad's family every year right up until his Grandpa died. As i got promoted, I earnt more yet still could not afford to go abroad..but after meeting Rob a few years back, our combined incomes mean we are fortunate enough to afford to travel abroad at least twice a year. I have seen slums in Israel and air raid shelters virtually on every house in Jerusalem, I have seen people living in shanty towns just outside Jerusalem and I remember what goes on in that part of the world...in a divided city that presents one face in public while hiding a shameful truth about how many of its citizens live behind barbed wire and bullet ridden walls.