W
hile planning our
latest family holiday
–
two weeks in a
campervan around
New Zealand – I started reminiscing
about the family holidays I had as
a child. We always went away at
Easter, to the coast, and we always
stayed in a caravan (trailer). It
almost always rained, but I have
very fond memories of barbecues
every night, fishing with my dad,
collecting shells, making new
friends with fellow holidaymakers,
and relishing the laid-back coastal
lifestyle. Despite carsickness, having
to share a bunk bed with my brother,
the inconvenience of common
toilet/shower blocks, and blistering
sunburn that also feature heavily in
my memories, those yearly holidays
were always something I looked
forward to.
Back in those days we never
imagined there was any other way
to travel. These days it’s known as
“
glamping” or “flashpacking”, but,
once upon a time, it was simply “going
on holidays.” Luxury resorts and villas
were reserved for the rich and famous,
while the rest of us made do with tents
or caravans. One year Mum and Dad
splashed out and we stayed in a hotel,
with a pool, but there was typically
very little variation in what we did each
year, and that was how we liked it.
Time travel
But times have changed, and as we’ve
travelled further, with greater ease,
and in more comfort than ever before,
our family holidays have grown to
match. Our first son had a passport
by the time he was six weeks old,
and he took his first flight on a plane
at four months. By the time he was
one, he had been to Australia, the
Philippines and Indonesia. I didn’t
have a passport until I was 15, and
the first time I flew on a plane, I went
on a sponsored trip to New Zealand.
It felt like such an incredibly long
way away, and everything was just so
different
.
I sought out familiar things
and foods (which is actually pretty
easy to do when you’re an Aussie
in New Zealand), wary of anything
remotely foreign.
When we took Joshua to Bali,
at 12 months of age, he was already
a seasoned traveller. It was our
first proper holiday as a family,
just the three of us, and we stayed
in a gorgeous villa in Ubud. Our
intrepid toddler happily dined on
chicken satay and sticky rice, and
was quite happy to be carried away
by the staff in any hotel or restaurant
while we ate our meals in peace. It
was a fantastic holiday, but it was in
such stark contrast to the holidays I
remembered taking as a child that I
wondered if we had set the bar too
high: would he always expect exotic
international destinations and luxury
accommodation for future holidays?
For Christmas last year, I was
desperate to venture back to one of
my favourite childhood haunts – a
small coastal town called Tathra, in
south-eastern Australia. We decided
to forgo the caravan, as I was heavily
pregnant at the time, and rented a
holiday house. But, apart from that,
it was exactly as I remembered it.
We all had a lovely time and the
things Joshua remembers from that
trip are eating fish and chips on the
beach, being harassed by seagulls,
building sandcastles with my father,
and watching the boats come in after
fishing all morning. This time, on our
New Zealand trip, his pure joy at the
sight of our campervan and the things
he enjoyed doing, like feeding ducks
on the lake and riding on a tractor,
are reassuring signs that he doesn’t
have very high standards at all and we
needn’t have worried.
Things to do …
One thing that really struck us on this
trip was how absorbed we were with
seeing and doing things. We had a
lot of ground to cover and any time
we stopped it was almost always at
a playground or fish and chip shop,
but we never stopped long enough in
one place to fully appreciate it. It’s as
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