My first package holiday was 49 years ago to Greece, it took 3 days to get there by car, plane, train, coach and ferry. It cost 50 GBP and that included food, accomodation, travel and spending money. 50 pounds was a lot of money in those days and it took me almost a year to save for it. I asked for money for christmas and birthday presents and my mother lent me the rest. It wasn't my first trip abroad as I had spent a school term in France when I was 16 but it was my first holiday abroad. The holiday started a life long love affair with travel which still exists almost 50 years later.

My first holiday in Spain was in 1965 when I went on a 10day package to Calella, it cost 19guineas (anyone remember guineas?) the hotel was OK, quite luxurious really as the room had it's own bathroom which wasn't common in those days, but the food was awful. In spite of the food I thoroughly enjoyed the holiday and returned home very suntanned and broke.

Since then I have travelled the world to some weird and wonderful places and seen some awesome sights but rarely does anything measure up to the excitement I felt when I took those first few holidays abroad.

When I was a child only the very rich went abroad on holiday and although I dreamed of visiting faraway places I never really thought I would. The advent of cheap package holidays in the 60's opened up a wide world for me and many of my generation.

my first foreign holiday was in 1966 when i went on a 2 week cruise to scandinavia through the school. it cost £15 which i had to save from my milk delivery round. we could not get into the duty free shop on board, so used to buy cigarettes from the crew.
we went on the "dunera" and visited trondheim, andalsnes, bergen and copenhagen.
many happy memories including my first foreign girlfriend, a trait which i seem to have pursued over the years, and playing football with some danish kids somewhere in copenhagen (the scots won).
also remember going to tenerife in a danair plane where i could only get into the seat space by having my bum half way up the back of the seat as the leg room was so small. that was when i first discovered the benefits of emergency row seating
many happy memories of smoking on planes, including once on cyprus airways when they had a smoking section that ended in the row behind where we were sat.everyone around us was moaning about not being able to smoke, so i moved the sign, which was on a runner above the seats, forward by a row so we could smoke, and this sign was subsequently moved further forward by eveyone in the rows in front of us. by the time the stewaress realised what had happened the sign was 3/4 of the way up the plane. she did try to get everyone to stop smoking, but in the end she just smiled and gave up.

You lot were taking holidays before I was even born!

I first ventured into Europe in 1968 when I was just a few weeks old as Dad was based in Germany..we were out there a few years and we holidayed in Europe..always going on one of them old style hippy buses type things. We only ever flew on military flights..I can remember my brother being put in some sort of crib box type thing that was actually strapped above the seats in the place where the luggage rack is nowadays! (should have left him there too..whiny little baby brat he was! )

I didn't have my first proper holiday holiday from England abroad until 1982 when I flew over to the USA to stay with my pen friend for the 6 weeks holidays!

My first holiday "abroad" was to the Isle of Man on our honeymoon in 1970. I had flown before when I worked in London in the late sixties but my brand new husband had never been on a plane. The weather was bad and the small plane buffeted all over the place. Next morning, as well as a brand new wedding ring, I had a set of black and blue fingerprints on my wrist where he had been clutching me. !!!!
Next holiday was some years later. Husband had a rare day off while I was at work and he had gone to to the pub. When I came home he handed me a receipt from the Travel Agents but only for the amount paid - no details. I had to phone the Travel Agents next day and say that my husband had booked a holiday but couldn't remember where. It turned out it was to Benidorm and in spite of the bad location of the hotel we have been hooked on the resort ever since

We went on a 16 day eastern mediteranean cruise in 1971,it was for our honeymoon and it cost us £113 each.The tour operator was called Clarksons,their planes were painted in lovely colours.The next year we went for a weeks cruise again with them,we arrived at the airport expecting to be flown to Rimini to join the ship,when we was told it had broken down in Tunisia and they were flying us there to sail that evening,2 days later we sailed !!and visited Naples,Sicilly,and Malta,it cost us £70 and they refunded half our money back for the inconvenience,shame they went bust after that.

My 1st foreign holiday was a cruise with the school. I think it was in 1971 and cost £84 for 2 weeks. We sailed on the SS Uganda to Gibraltar, Barcelona, Pisa, Florence & Lisbon. Our 1st family holiday was in the Easter of the following year, to the Taurus Park Hotel in Pineda de Mar in the Costa Brava. I had a picture taken on the steps going up to the plane, & I can't believe I was wearing a suede & sheepskin jacket

Ah I remember Clarkson's! (And Arrowsmith)
And having your photo taken as you descended the aeroplane steps in the resort, then when you went back to the airport to return home, they were all up on a board, in glorious black and white!
We went to Reus airport in 2000, and were tickled to find them still doing this (with colour photos) as it seemed to have died out years before.
kate

first holiday,1967,two weeks in palma majorca,£49 full board.myself and two mates.i am sure we went with clarksons,which i think later changed to court lines.in palma there was the passeo maritimo(the front).if we wanted to go on a beach we had to go to either arenal or palma nova.everything was very cheap then,pesetas.we must have enjoyed it because we went the next three years,with the number of lads increasing each year.

percy123.

First foreign holiday was in the seventies to Palma Nova booked with Global Holidays. I think it cost in the region of £300 for two adults and child for one week HB.Enjoyed it immensely. Everything seemed very cheap especially the drinks! Could not really afford to drink much at home. Did not have another holiday abroad until the eighties with a company called Intasun to Malta ( St Julians) I think it was about £139 each. Have been lucky enough to travel a lot since those days but those first holidays will always be extra special.

My first foreign holiday was 1970 to Arenal in Majorca (well before the arrival of the lager lout) and we had many holidays during the early, mid and late 70's......to Majorca and mainland Spain.

The Spanish airports all had photographers ready for flights as passengers disembarked......these photos of you walking down the aircraft steps were placed on a wall in the airport for your return flight home tho' I don't recall us ever purchasing them.....shame really as they'd probably give us a good laugh now!

Can remember flying with Britannia (when the lady with the fork was on the tail fin) and Dan Air

I remember one flight home I had one of those hideous safety dubious Spanish Donkeys and it went on the plane as hand luggage.....I would LOVE to know how many illegal drugs were transported thru' Europe in those things during the seventies. How many kids were injured by loose eyes, tacks and toxic fur I have no idea.....probably death traps when you look back!

I certainly remember x-ray machines in airports both here and abroad and the viewing platforms to sit and watch the planes....it was massive at PMI.

Loved getting Coca Cola in a glass bottle and eating 007 crisps and Chupa Chup lollies and spending our pesetas....seem to recall the pinball machine costing 5 pesetas a go.

I can remember these were the days when there was pretty much no such thing as a British Bar (think we found our first one in Ca'n Pastilla in 1979 called the Bar Belafor) but some Spanish bars had cottoned on to the fact that some of us were wary of foreign food and stuck beans on toast on the menu so we didn't starve.

In those days you didn't hear of anyone going self catering....it was always to a hotel and was either half or full board and there was ALWAYS some well dodgy entertainment!

Can remember sleeping on the airport floor as we always seemed to get caught up in some flight delay or another. On one occasion I went out of Malaga airport with my Dad to a transport cafe and we brought back ham filled baguettes wrapped in tin foil during one particularly long delay as they were cheaper than the airport. In those days you put up and shut up with delays.

Ahhhhhh......those were the days!

my parents were faithful thomson holiday goers when i was growing up, my mum would sit there with piles of brochures on a saturday night, glass of wine in one hand (lambrusco-it was the 80's!), giant casio calculator in the other in order to keep the budget in check!
we would usually spend 2 weeks in menorca during the school holidays, flying to mahon from manchester during the 1980's, terminal 1 at manchester (then it was the only terminal!) had the most amazing crystal chandelier light fittings, i used to think they were so pretty, we always flew with brittania airways, and i used to sit there looking at all of the stewardesses, in their red beret hats and matching leather gloves, and their absolutely huge shoulder pads in royal blue jackets thinking 'i want to be like that when i grow up' take off when you are 5 felt like you were actually in a rocket ship, and i remember sitting next to my dad, who would smoke Hamlet cigars on the flight!!!
one of my fondest memories was the tape of music that britannia used to play as you boarded the flight, it always included ''summer breeze'' by the isley borthers, and to this day, as i approach the age of 30, that song still reminds me of our lovely family holdidays, it's always on my ipod for my holidays and it takes me back like it was yesterday!

I remember as a small child (50+ years ago) on holiday in London being taken for the day to Heathrow(?) Airport to watch the planes take off to places I'd never even heard of. Scroll forward a few years and together with 3 friends we went to Spain and then to Italy for our hols. No binge-drinking, no loutish behaviour, just groups of teenagers having a good time. Move forward another couple of years to the late 60s and I did my first longhaul flight to South Africa to visit family. I came home by ship - the Windsor Castle, the company being Union (or something like that) and when we crossed the equator the captain appeared on deck dressed as Neptune and people who'd never 'crossed the line' came forward to be dunked in the pool. Do they still do that? Then I got married, we went to Ireland for our honeymoon - 39 years tomorrow! - and then to Spain for a couple of years. Eventually the children arrived on the scene and reduced to one wage foreign holidays disappeared for quite some time, only to re-emerge as camping holidays in France.

Now we take it for granted that, providing we can afford it of course, we can get on a plane and fly to Australia as easily as if it was Spain, creating even more memories.

Rosalyn

Quite interesting to read all these I feel so young though as I wasn't even born when you where going anyway so don't have any interesting memories like you do

Tarry, I think I would prefer not to have quite so MANY memories!

i,m also enjoying reading them all tracy

I didn't go abroad all these years ago, but even in the late eightys or early ninetys going on holiday flying with Air 2000 and being given a wee printed menu with meals like prawn cocktail as a starter. I do not remember the main course or dessert, but since prawns are my favourite dish, I do remember that. Change days!

Air 2000 breakfasts were a legend....best EVER inflight meals!

Tarry.....dont feel bad...this lot r so old even I werent born when they was goin on hols!!!

Must bring this one back!
My first holiday abroad was when I was about 10 and we went to the Agua Azul in Benidorm. I have no idea if its still around. It was right next to an open air cinema- bad choice! I was really ill after my first taste of asparagus! My little sister ended up having to see a doctor( and no we didn't go for compensation!) and middle sister stood on glass in the swimming pool and you would have thought she had bitten by a shark, there was so much blood. Great days!