UKH

I know a guy at work, nice bloke in his 50s, enjoys going for a wonder across the local Moors and generally holidays in the Lake District. All good stuff.

I conversation he mentioned that he had never been out of the country. Whilst I think that sometimes people don’t explore the U.K. enough, I couldn’t help thinking that he was missing many things that he would probably love, even if you just ventured as far as some of our European neighbours.

I just wondered if there was anyone on UKC who had never been abroad and particularly anyone with no interest in going abroad.

My grandmother went to France once in the 1930s with School, that was her only trip abroad until she was 86. She always said there was no point exploring another country until she had seen everything she wanted to see in Britain. Even at 86, she was certain she hadn't seen everything she wanted to see with the UK.

I remember meeting a guy from Dundee who said his grandparents had barely been out of the town - they went on holiday to Broughty Ferry. 

Why go anywhere else when you have Broughty Ferry on your front doorstep and Carnoustie and Arbroath on your back doorstop!!

I went to school in Sheffield, I remember some of the kids in my class had never even seen the sea and it's supprising how many people don't even hold a passport.

Such is the nature of this forum I don't imagine many have never left the country and of those who haven't I doubt many of them would want to admit it..

In the 90s, our next door neighbor down south told me he used to go to the county town once a year but he didn’t like all the horses.

My grandma only went abroad once, in her 70s, when after years of discussion my grandparents went on a tour across the Canadian Rockies. My Grandad spent a lot of time abroad, but all of it between 1940 and 1945, in the Navy.

Reminds me of the elderly woman who died on Portland, having never left the island... pretty astonishing way to spend your life really although perhaps the ability to find delight in small things is a virtue?

I’m from Stoke on Trent and still live there , I have numerous friends who have never been abroad . 

That doesn't surprise me. A cousin of mine had a company in Stoke and used to tell me about how his staff regarded places like Wales as "abroad". One girl actually genuinely asked if a passport was needed to travel to Wales!

My Gran on my mother's side never left her home town, never mind anywhere else.

However my Grandfather on my father's side was a train driver and my father travelled all over Europe in the 50's before international travel really took off. They were thought to be spies in Bulgaria (He was actually a sales rep)

Stoke is very parochial. I know old people who still live in the house that their grandparents lived and grew up in. I can trace my Stoke ancestors back to 1734 within a five mile radius and 4 generations back to the same street

This caused untold problems at work when people needed to prove they had a right to work there as hardly any had passports and quite a few didn't even have birth certificates (having lost them) and were most put out that they had to fork out for new ones. I remember one lad, who's parents had been Romanies and had failed to register the birth of their son, had no end of trouble with it.

In the case of my friends it’s their parents could never afford to and / or never desired too. 

We did manage to convince my mate he’d need his passport on a Scotland trip too! 

I’m from Stoke and know people who haven’t been out of Stoke! Newcastle not included.

Not quite the same thing but on a one and only trip to Cadshaw Rocks near Bolton I got chatting to one of the regulars who asked me where I climbed on grit. I mentioned Stanage and a troubled look passed over his face and he said 'I have heard of it but haven't been to the Peak' 

It is admittedly just out of sight of Cadshaw. 

I am in my 50s and am about to go outside Europe for the first time in my life, to Hong Kong to see my daughter. I am very excited!

I’d imagine a lot of towns like stoke have people like that too. I live in Clayton which is Newcastle and the lads I’m talking about are from this way too . Can also remember a mate of mine coming with 25+ of us for 2 weeks in Magaluf and it was his first time abroad ! I also know I lot of very very well travelled people , but I’d imagine stoke has many folk who’ve never been abroad. 

A travel writer of my acquaintance told me some years ago of two people he met.

One was an elderly farm worker in Italy who had never ventured beyond the valley in which he had been born.

The other was a young man in his late teens or early twenties who had set himself the target of getting round the world in as short a time as possible.

He doubted that either had broader horizons(or minds) than the other.

My Dad tried to persuade his local farmersf group to do a short trip to an agricultural show in Ireland. Travel is pretty awkward for farmer's, but it was a quiet time of year, they'd just need someone to check in that nothing was awry for 2 days.

Most of them unsurprisingly didn't have a passport, but it turned out one guy had only ever spent 1 night outside the valley he was born in, and it wasn't even the main valley, just a small side one.

Yeah. My mentor when I was a printing apprentice lived in Brown Edge. He only did 2 routes. Home to work and home to Morrison’s Festival Park. Before I left in 2001, he went to Spain on a plane. Feckin hated it!

I’ve nwver been out of Europe and not out of Britain since 2002. I haven’t had a passport since then. We have a Feb holiday in Keswick and a summer one in Arisaig. The Mrs is going abroad this year with the kids. She mentioned Cornwall but why drive the same distance south when you can go north and have no crowds? 

My grandparents barely left Yorkshire until they retired. Then they turned their farmhouse in to a very successful B +B in the 80s/90s and travelled the world from the profits.

I met an old ex-whale hunter in the Shetlands.  He'd never set foot outside the Shetlands, let along set foot on Scottish soil or even English soil, yet he'd spent most of his younger years on whaling ships in the south atlantic.

Indeed when i was younger I knew a guy from my town in North Yorkshire who'd only once been outside the town and that was to Leeds to see his future wife. 

Swipe right?

I don't think my mum ever left the UK and my dad only did one road trip which started in Normandy and finished in Holland.

Travel on its own does do anything to culture the individual.

This was plainly obvious when traveling around NZ last year (my first trip outside of Europe). The backpackers places I was staying were stuffed with Instagram "experience" seekers who were midway through their gap-year tours or trips to find themselves and yet their best experiences were still things like getting really drunk somewhere.

And regarding the traveling or not thing. I really do think that we undervalue the UK. If the weather was a bit more reliable you could holiday for a very long time without getting bored.

I used to live and work in Doncaster.  Myself and a coworker, who was in his late 40’s, were sent to go on a training course near Huntingdon.  On the way there, while I was driving, he started shaking.  I asked him what was wrong and he said he’d never been this far before.  We were still north of Newark....

It also turned out he’d never eaten pizza, curry, Chinese food or pasta.

During the miners strike my Mum put up a crowd of Welsh miners at our house in London so that they could attend a demonstration. Many of them had never left their valley before. Four years ago we held a memorial service for her, and some of them came to London to attend it. One told me that this was the second time he'd been out of the valley, and would probably be the last.

Kinda like me, though I travel to Ireland 2/3 times a year to see my dad, I haven't been out of the British Isles in over 10 years and of the trips I did make from 2000 on, two were days trips via the tunnel and one a weekend to a wedding of my wife's friend in Frankfurt. Less than a week cumulatively! Frankfurt is my furthest travel ever, then Paris (where I once lived for 4 months). 

Nothing against going abroad but my wife hates flying and we have a dog. I also love seeing Scotland and I  don't think I will ever get bored with it.

On a train in the early 00's, I sat across from a late middle aged Yorkshire couple who had never eaten fecking pasta. We had a fairly involved conversation about how their daughter was a fan of it but they didn't fancy trying it. I was incredulous.

Have you tried telling them that it's okay; nowhere else is like Stoke?

Don’t need too no point going anywhere when it’s this good here youth! 

i still see him from time to time but I've never asked if he's yet to leave town.

Interesting thread. The comments about some people trying to tick off loads of destinations yet not really learning any more than someone that never goes beyond 50 miles, are quite telling. I’ll reflect on this on post some thoughts later in the week.

Well, yeah. Going places is no biggie, it's interacting with different people and seeing and doing unfamiliar things that broaden you.

What did you tell.her?

Up until recently you could have said that the booths on the Severn bridge were passport control. 

For his 70th birthday, Stanley who farmed the next farm over decided he would go to Devon as it was probably time to leave the county/country. He got stuck in a queue crossing the Tamar bridge and decided it wasn't worth it so turned around at the next opportunity. He also regards pasta as foreign muck.

Another farmer I know lives in Mabe and has visited Falmouth once for his sister's wedding, he has never been further. 

I was very lucky as a kid to travel all over Britain. My Dad was a lorry driver which in those days meant everything from Welsh Coal to Scottish Steel, Kentish apples, Devon potatoes, Newcastle beer, Fort William Aluminium and even the odd trip far out places like Dounray or the South Bank. It gave me a massive sense of wonder about the UK that has stayed with me today. 

In my mid thirties, I had my Big Trip to Yosemite and, amazing as it was, once was enough. Tuolumne really impressed us but it wasn't any better than the Etive Slabs. It was enthralling to be so far from home, but the tedium of plane travel had nothing compared to a good marathon up the M6.

I have family abroad now, who I love to visit regularly. But for adventure, culture, history, exploration and climbing, I think I could manage without a passport.

People are people the world over.

Yoosemite is not the Peak District.  

I travel to see different places, different trees and animals, to smell different airs.  As much as possible I avoid towns and cities both at home and when travelling...

My grandfather was of the generation of hundreds of thousands of young men who went to France between 1914 and 1918, their one and only trip abroad. Sadly a lot of them never returned.

I have travelled to a few distant places; Florida, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Middle East, India, Nepal, North Africa to name some. I enjoy travelling and would travel more if I could afford to.

Conversely my brother went to Holland about twenty years ago for his honeymoon; end of. He claims to be scared of flying. What's wrong with sea travel?

As you say, going places isn't a big thing in itself: I bet a lot of us have friends who go to Spain, seek out an "English" pub, drink John Smiths  and eat only steak and chips for a week, don't we?

If you love Scotland I'd recommend you try and get to Norway. Harder these days now without flying, and not sure about the dog - but it's like Scotland but just bigger and with less people!

Does that explain how Stoke voted in the referendum?

Me too. My parents were fanatical cyclists, and my father informed me when I was in first year secondary that I had now ridden my bike in every county of England & Wales. I think Cornwall was the last I set wheel in.

I don't think my parents discovered abroad till in their mid 60s they learned that you could take your bike on the plane to Mallorca

Tuolumne really impressed us but it wasn't any better than the Etive Slabs

Bet the weather was better. And the midges.

I wonder if that’s one of the reasons Stoke voted strongly to leave? I’m not trying to stir things up - I taught in Stoke for 13 years and still retain a genuine affection for the people (not so much the place itself though😊). I think one of the advantages of travel is that you do get to see and appreciate other peoples and cultures, you hopefully therefore become less parochial. I have no evidence but I think this might be a problem in America for instance.

One of my more bizzare experiences was when I was in Nepal. We were in Kathmandu and my partner at the time had been there a few months and had got to know the layout. So when we bumped into a group of people just off the plane and trying to find their hotel we offered to help them. As we were walking along one girl kept looking at me funny. Eventually she said, "Excuse may duck, but an a ra sayin they in't Wheatsheaf in Stoke?"

Billy Winspit....his picture is in the square and compass and you can climb the route in the quarry

Billy Winspit (7b)

reputedly spent much of his life between the two places.

It's not unusual still to hear of older folk, mainly farming stock whose first trip off the Isle of Man is in their 70s or 80s for radiotherapy.

jk

anybody who climbed at wallabarrow In the 80s will maybe remember an old farm worker who used to come over and chat when you parked by the farm . His Cumbrian dialect was almost undecipherable  to the un trained ear but one of my partners at the time spoke fluent Cumbrian and got chatting to him one evening after the crag . He had only left the valley a couple of times . He went to Whitehaven once , but didn't like it much . 

Not really , the whole country voted to leave overall . Stokes got its idiots just like the rest of the country . And the EU .... 

But the overall leave vote was 52%, not the 70% recorded in Stoke.

That’s brilliant , I’ve bumped into my fair share all over the place and I think the accent sticks out like a sore thumb that’s for sure. 

Can see the point your trying to make , I don’t think stokes alone here that’s for sure , as this thread proves ! 

Less rain and no midges!

Yeah. I’ve not been there for 20 years and have voted for the Newcastle Bergen ferry reinstatement. Estate car full of food and beer and bobs your uncle. 

Yeah I’m just not sure that’s a direct link between the leave vote and not leaving the UK on holiday 

There’ll undoubtedly be a strong link between leave voters and going on holiday to Benidorm though. 

Funny you should say that! After 5 days in Yosemite the weather turned to rain. We were half way up Nutcracker at the time. Looking up at El Cap through swirling mist and climbing on wet rock was NOT what we had come to California for.

We drove over Tioga Pass in howling rain and spent the final day of our trip in the sun in Joshua Tree, which was fantastic!

But not as fantastic as the Roaches.

Depends on which bit of Stoke. Where I live the majority was for remain, further east constituancies were mostly leave

Interesting terminology (not a dig), sheep come from "stock" such as Lakes stock, or hill stock, same with other farm animals, good stock, bad stock.

Now the farmers themselves come from "farming stock".

But I totally agree with the sentiment, I have known many in mid Wales (err, farming stock ) who have barely ever left their county, never mind country. I certainly don't see it as unusual for those now over the age of 60.

Typical conversation has been:

Me: I lived in Sussex

Them: you must know my cousin's friend who moved there, John Smith?

Aye. The smoke from the Potts didn’t blow over Clayton 

Very true. There is no way you can learn much about another culture on a holiday.

However it can be fun and there is nothing wrong with that.

The only way if you want to understand another culture and really get something from it is to live and work there for several years. Something we’ve been able to do quite easily in Europe, and that I am quite sad British people will lose. It just makes us more insular.

If you get killed on your first trip you’re unlikely to make a second is true, for sure.

That's interesting, what stuck with my late Mum when she travelled after retiring was always about the way people lived differently, when in India or China, the way other countries and cultures were different, and how this affected the lives of people. 

I dare say with the right perspective(s) there's something to be gained from both the natural and inhabited aspects of other countries...

Shetland.

I know of a few in Cornwall who have only crossed the Tamar to go to hospital or jail. The same for mid Wales.

Given the negative environmental impacts of air travel - is it such a bad thing that people choose to stay in the UK? As others have pointed out - travel alone doesn't necessarily broaden the mind or make you more aware of the lives of others. 

Honeypot tourism doesn't necessarily benefit the lives or economy of the places it's inflicted on either - unless you own accommodation/restaurants/touristy businesses. 

Those who never leave are missing out on experiences and interactions, but some of the replies to this thread do have an air of snobbery towards the untravelled.

Too much air travel is affecting the planet so perhaps it was much healthier in the past when people stayed in their respective countries more and had holidays there. 

I'm not trying to be a sanctimonious killjoy as I am just as guilty as some but not all as I know people who are off abroad on planes three or four times a year or even more.I just think we need to cut back on it at least a wee bit to help the planet. We behave as if there are no consequences in jetting around as if it's like jumping on a bus and when everyone thinks like that then that's a lot of consequences.

When I was wee (Early 70s)only posh people had been abroad and certainly no one I knew had ventured further than Wembley Stadium.Did this make anyone less happy? No it didn't. Now all I hear is  "oh so and so is just back from NY and later  I'm going to Las Vegas or Dubai but before that I have a little break in Thailand. It's as if everyone has this international tick list of places they must see. Why? Its like a pathological need in a lot of people. 

And also you can see the beauty of the world in a flower, a tree, a person or yourself you don't need to run off anywhere far away in fact doing so can make life harder and less fulfilling as you need to constantly seek out what has never been seen before rather than appreciate what is here. 

Also from a climbing outdoorsy view we are very lucky in the UK climbing scene to have everything - and a lot of it-other than death zone high mountains. 

I had a mate at uni who had never been abroad till his mid 20's.  Struck me as being odd, seeing as he grew up in Dover...

I don’t think it is true that in the early 70s only posh people went abroad. My grandparents on my Dad’s side enjoy foreign package holidays at that time and a little bit earlier. They were the very definition of working class. We have a picture at home of my father-in-law, with the pyramids of Giza in the background from the late 60s, again very much working class.

I was thinking that wars/military have given a lot of people the chance to see places beyond their normal experience. My maternal grandfather went all over the world in the army between the wars as he was too young for one and too old for the next. My dads dad on the other hand never left the country despite being much better educated and open minded (apart from the germans!) he was in a reserved occupation in the steelworks during the wars. His mother however travelled the Oregon trail twice as a single traveller. No one quite seems to know why she went but she must have had quite an intrepid attitude. 

It's a bone of contention in our household; because I've been travelling all around Africa and the Middle east for 35 years I don't really want to fly for my holidays so I'd rather just go somewhere cool and clean like Scotland. In any case I can't see any pleasure in visiting tourist hotspots like Venice or Rome now that they are rammed full of ill-mannered tourists and thieves. Even that London, place of my birth, is a nightmare in Summer. 

Has it ever occurred to anybody that the world's most glamorous places are always those that have featured in James Bond films? Featuring in a Bond movie would give a place cachet and glamour far beyond what any tourism campaign could achieve and it was our parents' generation who watched those films and went to see the places. Example: what's so glamorous about the Carribbean? Any Youtube sailing videos I've watched seem to show a collection of poxy scrubby islands and run-down tin houses. After Bond came films like The Beach, which has ruined that beach in Thailand. Give me the white sands and the machair of Tiree or Coll any day.

I know and I would love it (apart from the fish and stinky cheese). We've looked into getting a ferry there and bring the dog too. Who knows if a ferry service will ever be established from Scotland to Norway (or Sweden). Its unacceptably insane to drive south for 5 hrs to Immingham to get a ferry heading north!

These are really good points, in the end it comes down to what makes a person happy, it shouldn't be looked down upon when people are less or untraveled.

Along similar lines, a little old lady passed away nr Kendal last year and when the estate agent went into the property to value it discovered that it had no electricity!

I know a lot of people who will never leave their town, let alone their country (I'm from Grimsby, the only place in the UK where the local newspaper outsells all the tabloids). My Mum used to teach there and persuaded some extremely bright kids that they could go to university, and that they'd manage fine away from Grimsby. Eventually they came round to it... and usually went to Lincoln uni so they could live at home and commute. That attitude is pretty deep-routed with a lot of people.

My girlfriend teaches in inner-city Manchester. On Saturday she led a group of D of E hopefuls on a nearby walk. Most of them, having never left the city, had never seen Manchester on a horizon before  and had for example never seen a river going through or between fields before. Good thing is they were excited by it and want to see more of the country!

Me. Sixty two and never had a passport.

A statement that was probably doing the rounds of country houses back in the 1770s!

Never mind never been out of the country, I have come across people in Milton Keynes who have never been to London.

As someone who is very well travelled, I find this quite difficult to understand!

What do you consider to be very well travelled?

Travelling to London is something I try and avoid, wish I had never been.

A common enough sentiment. What exactly is it you hate about our capital? Feel free to give it both barrels!

Well, er, I've been around the UK a lot, around most of Europe and to the US, Canada, Japan, China and South East Asia?

I don't agree with you over London, though I wouldn't want to live there.  But I can't think of anywhere I genuinely regret having been, even if to see it and decide a return was not something I would bother with.  Some places have surprised me, both positively and negatively.

Wasn’t a dig, just interested in perception. I don’t consider myself particularly well travelled, but I’ve been to the US and Canada, Japan, Brazil and Argentina as well as lots of Europe and lots and lots of the U.K., so probably similar to you. Maybe it’s because there are lots of places I haven’t been to that I would like to or maybe it’s just that I know a few people who have travelled far more extensively.

I'd say you were fairly well travelled then too - similar level to me.

A friend's father flew into Hamburg airport in the 80's - the stewardess noticed that he looked a little agitated and asked if he was OK - he told her that he'd flown over Hamburg many times, but only at night and in a Lancaster.  He had a DFC.

London is great I like London, although I haven't been there in a few years.

Travelling to London is something I avoid as travelling in the UK has become such a nightmare. You are stuck with road congestion or congested, overpriced trains. Neither option fills me with joy

An alternative title ariding from your post and perhaps applicable to the  extreme Brexiters who have landed us in so much Scheiss might be "what knows he of England who only England knows?" 

London will only be free when everyone who lives here either has a foreign passport or was born overseas.

what?!

I have a neighbour, Edinburgh born and lived in the city all her life, who is quite widely travelled within Europe and the US, but (now in her 70s) has never been north of Perth.  "Nothing but mountains, why would I want to go there?" 

When I went to University (in London) I met a girl from Surrey, she had been abroad plenty, but never been north of Camden.

I've not been abroad. Health problems for a start, would be tricky.

It's like Mos Eisley compared with Leek.  It has a railway station for a start.  

Reminds me of a comment a friend heard in America, from someone looking at the mountains - "Goddam mountains, blocking out the view!"

This is not a joke

Ha, my Dad grew up in Aberdeen, moved to the Central Belt as an adult and occasionally ventured as far west as Glasgow - he once visited Inverness (from Aberdeen) and didn't like it, has never visited Fort William / Aviemore etc.  - there's nowt so queer as folk

Congratulations to the two dislikers. You’ve achieved your goal of making me not want to bother