110,000 people plus every day

DGS1 and his Australian girlfriend left for the Philippines on Tuesday where they will spend Christmas with friends before flying to Perth to visit her family.
Oh to be young again and have the stamina!!

For most of my childhood I spent Christmas abroad

My mother decided it would be far more fun to be in New York, Tunisia, Balearics or Carribean. So off we went.

Not so much traffic in those days but it caused me a lot of trauma. I couldn't understand how Father Christmas would know where I was.

In the end my father arranged for a sign writer to make a fantastic sign which was left in the hall, telling FC where we were.

Everything is a long way for us if we go overseas. Even New Zealand is 3.5 hours by plane and it has a 2 hour time difference. Mostly you get used to it. To visit Sydney from Melbourne is a 12 hour drive but you could go nearby to Adelaide, only 7 hours. I laughed when one of my relatives suggested we could meet someone in Perth for coffee- 4 and a half hours plane ride plus over an hour to get to the airport in the first place.

I have a long car journey on Tuesday to my son's house. I'm dreading it but I said I would go. Other option was home on my own and it will be good to see him and my two GS.
I just hope we don't get stuck in traffic as I can't go long without a loo break.

We’ve only been out of the U.K. twice for Christmas - first not long after my mother and FiL had both been widowed. Dds only about 9 and 12 - we all went to Austria skiiing for the first time. (DM and FiL didn’t ski) An Aussie friend of dd1 - they’d been v close while we were still living in Oman - joined us - it was very successful.
No snow when we arrived, but it snowed on Christmas Eve!

Another time when dds were late teens we went to Cuba, which was just opening up to tourism. A comparatively v good value long haul destination at 🎄 then. Both DDs were studying Spanish so a good opportunity for practice, too.

When I lived in London - to the East on the Essex border, I used to drive down to my daughter in Weston-super-Mare in Somerset on Christmas morning. Used to love that drive, roads so very empty. If I needed to stop at all at any of the Service Station, everyone else there would say 'Merry Christmas' as they walked past you. Would start out about 8.00 in the morning and wit an easy drive at about 60mph would arrive for coffee by 11.00 am.

Mind you - the drive home on the 27th was always a nightmare, until one year I started out at 11.00 pm on 26th and drove through the night. That was fine.

Been to my son in NZ a few times for Christmas but no longer enjoy travelling so won’t be doing it again Never travelled right at Christmas always a week or so before Have spent Christmas in Europe at my younger daughters but don’t want to be away any more weird how your body tells you what to do as you get older

I prefer to stay put, and avoid the 27th at all costs. A few years ago, we decided to drive with my elderly Mum to stay a 2 hour drive away at her house. ( She had come to live with us by then, but still had her house.) A puncture on the (slow-moving) M25, plus a 2 hour wait for a tow truck, made us never want to travel on that date again.

A firm no from me. We had a couple of years where we travelled down from here in Yorkshire to Cornwall for Christmas and it was lovely once we got there, but the getting there and back was a real pain.

Very lucky, that Family are all within 'car' distance. Prefer a cosy, traditional Christmas. 🎄 🤶

No flying at Christmas but I don’t mind the U.K. roads after the getaway melee as people seem to stay put once they’ve got to their initial destination and roads are quiet.

I don’t even like being on the roads at Christmas, let alone at an airport! 110,000 people sounds like a nightmare…