your first foray abroard

First trip abroad was paid for by H,M King George at age 17 when I had joined the army underage This was to Palestine in late 1946 and have never had any desire to return there as we were not welcome and hospitality was not forthcoming from the local residents.

We lived in poverty, my dad died when I was ten years old and holidays were a day trip to Blackpool. Married pregnant at 17 I was 35 before my first trip abroad for a family holiday. However in the interim I became a teacher then a primary school head, had 5 children and was a very happy and contented woman. I've travelled a lot since then but still love Barcelona, our first foreign trip.

Ian42, a year and a half ago, I travelled by rail from Manchester to Avignon, though I spent a night each way in a hotel near St Pancras. You can manage without flying or sailing now that there's a tunnel under the channel. Once you get to Paris, Brussels or Lille, it's possible to cover a lot of Europe by train.

I've been abroad a few times, mainly to France (in the North), once to Bruges in Belgium, however just over twelve years ago I traveled to Israel where I stayed for ten days first part in Jerusalem and the second part near the lake of Galilee. However I can no longer go abroad as I cannot fly or sail.

I first went abroad aged 19 in 1967. My brother shared a house with a gang of blokes, one of whom had a mother who lived in the hills of Majorca all year round. How exotic, we thought! My first glimpse of Alaro was late in the evening, driving through the village where each doorway had a television set in and everyone was sitting outside, watching the same programme. It took me a day or two to settle into the "foreign" nature of everything, including eating late in the evening, my first taste of garlic, swimming every day. My brother, 11 years my elder, and his friends took wonderful care of me, very protective, and Jaime, the owner of the little bar we visited daily, made me special tomato sandwiches - I was thoroughly spoilt by everyone. If I smell jasmine I am back there straight away, walking down through the alleyways where jasmine was tumbling over, scenting the warm evening air. The part of Majorca where we stayed was still very Spanish, how it must have changed.

A trip to Holland to visit family when I was three must have been my first visit to "abroad" but I don't remember much about it. From 1956, when I was six, onwards my family took foreign holidays every year and we travelled all over Europe. Later, when I was old enough to travel by myself I add visits to other continents to my travel experience and also worked briefly in Barcelona. For many years I thought it was an automatic part of being a grown-up that you spoke a number of foreign languages because my father was a terrific linguist and loved to travel.

i was 15, in 1965, and went with my best friend and her mother to PARIS!! I am still in love with that city and regret that living her in the French Pyrenees it is far more difficult and expensive to get there than when i lived in Kent and could get the Eurostar and go for the day. I still remember the risque thrill of walking around the Boulevard de Clichy and Montmartre at night, the non queue and amazing views from the Eiffel tower, and wading through a French menu and tackling the strange currency. Art galleries, churches and sipping hot chocolate on the terrace of a cafe on the Champs Elysee during 'l'heure d'aperitif' and thinking we were so sophisticated. I look at the photo now and cringe!! Later business trips to Paris were much more sophisticated by just as awesome.

Aged 2 years old, it was 1946 and my mother and I boarded a ship to the Far East to join my father in Hong Kong. My mother told me years later that it was full of women and children going back to tea plantations that had been taken over by the invading Japanese forces. Many of the women and children had spent the war in the dreadful Japanese camps. Mum said she felt very guilty at being so healthy as the women were still suffering ill health due to the dreadful conditions they'd endured.
It was the first of many sea voyages and other journeys catching up with my father. I didn't go to Europe until 1966 when I worked for 2 years in Geneva I was a nanny to a very wealthy American family looking after 5 children.!

I was 19 and into sailing. My boyfriend and I (we had a boat of our own) were asked to crew for a lovely old (well for us at the time) couple to help them take their boat to Ostende.
I had never seen such luxury on a boat. We had our own cabin each and the biggest luxury for us was Automatic steering; which in those days was the hight of sophistication.

Goodness I had no idea that Éric Tabarley had died knocked overboard from his yacht off the coast of Wales in 1988. While sailing to a regatta in Scotland. It seems a very prosaic end after so much epic long-distance sea travel. RIP.

Hello, isthis, have I just been on the wrong threads or have you been missing recently? I hope you are well. Enjoyed your account of your travels. Maybe we could fit China into a new thread.

I was lucky. My Dad was keen on sailing and liked to take me with him.

First trip was to the Gulf of Morbihan in France. Possibly 1957. There was a terrible drought on, I'd never seen bottled water before, I remember it tasted very odd. We met a famous round-the-world sailor, Éric Tabarley. A big celebrity in France. His yacht was out of the water on wooden props. He lent over with a rope, we each put a foot in the loop at the end and he just hauled each of us up, hand over hand, adults as well as me. He was very fit and wiry. He showed me how to blow a conch shell he had on board. I remember visiting Belle Isle and the smell in the fish docks. The weather was scaldingly hot. All very strange after Birmingham!

Then in 1959 my Dad and I travelled to Norway on a Fred Olsen cruise liner. We caught the train from Oslo to Kristiansand. Then sailed back to England, once some fierce stormy weather had eased off. I most remember the sauna on the ship (first one I'd ever come across), the meat balls we ate on the train journey and the fish market in Kristiansand. There was a big lump of orangey-white whale blubber by the entrance to the market and as people passed they would cut off a slice with their pocket knife to chew. It smelt strongly.

I've loved travelling ever since. All over the British Isles and Europe, but especially mainland China, where I have taught five times. Wonderful place, as long as you're not a tourist!

Ibiza March 1983, with a 9mth old baby and a toddler -it rained all week, ex-husband got the trots from having ice in his drinks, and baby was sick all week.... I didn't go abroad again until 2008 !

My first time was a school trip to Bavaria. I was sixteen. It was magical. We flew to Munich, took a train to Salzburg then a coach to Konigsee. I'll never forget the experiences I had there, the funicular railway in Salzburg, the underwater salt mine and the visit to Berchtesgaden. More than forty years later I'm still promising myself a return visit.

I had the chance to go to Austria with my family at the age of 16, but passed in order to spend a week in Scarborough with my friends. I remember getting my O level results while they were away and a phone call from them to find out how I had done. My first trip abroad was when I won a cruise for two to Holland, France and Germany when I was a student. I had just split up from my long term boyfriend, so took my mum, who provided all the spending money. I didn't go abroad again until I was 28 and by then, the mother of three. My honeymoon was back in dear old Scarborough.

I don't think I can remember my first time abroad; it certainly wasn't with school as we only went to places like the Isle of Wight!

It might have been a ferry trip to France but certainly it was post 18.

What I can remember is my first flight. It was a trip to Toronto, Canada with a group of friends in 1983 and I sat next to a girlfriend older than me who had also never flown before.

My children didn't fly until they were teenagers as we usually just drove the car to France for camping holidays.

The first time I went abroad was in 1956 when I was 11. my grandfather took me to Norway as a reward for passing the 11plus exam. We went to Stavanger and Voss and Bergen. There was a school teacher called Mr. lord in our party and only one other child a young boy. I remember how kind Mr. Lord was to us both. He took us fishing on the fiord and snowballing on a glacier and we walked behind a waterfall. I remember all the sandwiches the hotel made us for packed lunches were just a single slice of bread topped with cheese or ham. It was the first time I had seen a bidet in an hotel wonderful holiday and happy memories of my grandfather.

1950. I was three when we flew out to Egypt to join my father who was already out there in the RAF. I hated the flight as there was a lot of turbulence. I remember the stewardess making me a cup of tea to cheer me up but it was made with evaporated milk so made me sick instead .
We were in Egypt for two years but had to be evacuated in a hurry due to street fighting, grenade attacks and bombings when King Farouk was deposed. Mum, my brother and I were taken by launch, under cover of darkness, to the liner Orchades, which was anchored off shore to pick up families that were being rescued. Dad flew straight to Malta and we joined him six months later.

My first trip "overseas" - was to England! I was all of 47, but I had travelled all over southern Africa prior to that:

My best friend won a prize for 2 people - a week in London as guests of the British Tourism Assocation; accommodation in a 5 star hotel opposite Kensington Palace; tickets to the theatre; dinner at a Conran restaurant and much more. We were picked up and taken all over by black cab. Needless to say, I thought that was what living in England was like all the time .

Even now, when I walk through that stretch of park near Kensington Palace, I get the same thrill that I experienced back then.

Like Movedalot my first foray abroad was our honeymoon - an early (1966) version of a package holiday when the travel was a bit of a marathon. Taxi from reception to station, train to Glasgow, o'night in hotel, next day night coach to London, then coach to Manston airport for o'night flight to Basle, coach over the Alps in the dawn, tour of Milan and arrived after dark in Rimini on the Tuesday. Had a quick paddle in the sea but the following morning when we saw and felt the sun we were astonished, amazed, went out in a pedalo and both got badly burned. 7 wonderful days in Rimini, marvelling at the tiny children who were fluent in Italian, hole in the floor toilets, the price of Moscato (3xbottles for £1), a trip to San Marino and a night out to a vinyard turned restaurant half way up a mountain, where the flowers, vines, view were all real not plastic.

Then we had to endure the journey back home, with an impromtu o'night in Basle airport because an engine had fallen off our plane. The airport duty free and cafe were closed and re-opened just as we were boarding. So we spent the night demolishing our supplies of Moscato and the 2.5 lbs of cherries I had bought thinking by the price that I was buying a quarter pound.

Totally memorable but we were exhausted when we got home - everyone remarked 'that must have been some honeymoon' but it took us 25 years, until our silver wedding to make the, much more civilized, return trip

I was 7 when I 1st went abroad. After several wet holidays in Cornwall my Dad had had enough! We drove to Spain, Tossa de Mar (when it was still a small fishing village) My brother still tells everyone that I had to stop for a wee behind every tree from Calais to Spain!! (nothing changed much in that respect, gone full circle!!!) After that we tried Switzerland and eventually worked our way down to Italy which my mother loved. Since then I've tried camping and gites in France several times, Greece and since I remarried Canada as DH has relatives there! I ended up living in Italy and consider myself very fortunate.

What a lot of interesting experiences. I just remember the wonder of it all. I doubt very much if many youngsters now experience that - certainly not on Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents

1952, I was 8, my father was in the army and he was posted to Hong Kong. We went by troopship and first port of call was Algiers.

We left cold grey post-war Britain, rationing still on and the Korean War being fought (which was why we were going to Hong Kong) and although I was curious and interested in everything we saw and the experience of living in the Far East from 8 until I was 11 was life shaping, my outstanding memories of this new experience were all the vacinations we had before we went, usually painful and some left me feeling unwell and going up to Oxford Street to a department store to buy two new summer dresses. Up until then clothes were home made and came singly, but two dresses at once and both bought......

Aged 18 in 1956, with a large number of military personnel we left Liverpool in the MV Nevasa, bound for Cyprus... I was to join the No 6 Regional Band, the Band of the MIddle East Air Force. First land-fall was Gibraltar, and the second Malta, and then at last Famagusta.

During the next two and a half years we visited Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Aden and Nairobi - not a bad introduction to travel!

I've written a few bits about it all on this page: www.epicure.demon.co.uk/randrandme.html if anyone is at all interested.

I was 10, my sister and I went to France with my Father Stepmother and their 2 little boys. We went by car,and I remember the heat , which astonished me, and the ripe peaches dribbling their juice down my chin as we picnicked on the side of the road. When another GB car was spotted we all waved and hooted the horn, this was 1957, and such holidays were considered very exotic and unusual.