The 16 unofficial middle-class holiday rules… that we're getting all wrong

Telegraph

2 days ago

There are many supposed truisms about travel trotted out by right-thinking people. These are often misguided. Among the more specious are the following:
1. Chain hotels are soulless, so to be avoided
No. Give me a clean room, a comfortable bed, a bath in the bathroom (Lord help us, not the bedroom), lighting I can understand, predictable standards – and I'll supply all the soul that's needed.
2. Always eat where the locals eat
Why? Even in Europe, locals will eat some appalling muck – or perhaps you've never tried Provençal pieds-et-paquets or Norwegian rakfisk? And following locals in, say, Hackney might very well lead to jellied eels. How Bolivian visitors will curse you for that bit of advice.
3. Never order a full English breakfast in foreign parts
Why ever not? Look around you. Japanese people seek out Japanese restaurants in London; Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz both favour Spanish restaurants near Wimbledon; Italians pile into trattorie all over the world. So eggs, bacon and the full floor show are not merely allowed but positively recommended in the morning sun of Torremolinos. It's the finest possible setting for the best breakfast in the world. Be proud, and demand brown sauce.
4. Keep off the beaten track
Wrong. The track is beaten because there's something worthwhile at the end of it. Otherwise it wouldn't be beaten. Stay off the beaten track and you'll likely end up somewhere no-one wants to go: Chernobyl, North Korea, Roubaix, Northampton, that sort of place.
5. Airline meals are dreadful
Really? You're moving at 550mph, 35,000 feet above the ground… and you're complaining about the state of the lasagne?
6. You mustn't use knives and forks for Chinese food, or spaghetti
Oh yes, you must. Thin sticks are uniquely ill-designed for the eating of rice and noodles. Only a totalitarian society would insist on them. Meanwhile, the Italian requirement that spaghetti be not cut but twirled is just another of their ways – coffee invisible to the naked eye, Mario Balotelli, the Mafia – of annoying the world. Chop it up, for heaven's sake – it tastes the same and doesn't stain – and, when Chinese or Italians come to Britain, demand they eat their fish and chips with a brick.
7. Always avoid other Britons on holiday
Why on earth? We're usually pretty decent; also the only ones who can maintain a conversation about the pension triple lock, Bonnie Blue, Port Vale FC, roadworks on the A59, the mystery of London's parakeets or the legacy of Ozzy Osbourne. Spaniards in a Spanish bar are no more interested in talking to you if you don't speak Spanish than you are interested in talking to monoglot Slovenians down your local pub. Also you are the other Britons to other Britons, so need to leave wherever you are as soon as other Britons show up, so as not to torpedo their holiday.
8. We got on marvellously, though we had no common language
No. You thought you got by with signs and smiles. You didn't. As you expressed admiration for Volodymyr Zelensky, so they understood you were inviting them for a fortnight back in Peterborough.
9. In France, you don't order a well-done steak or a café au lait in mid-afternoon
Yes you do, if you want to. You're the customer, Gaspard is the waiter. He disapproves? So what? If he was so great, he'd be sitting where you are and you'd be serving him.
10. We support sustainable tourism
Terrific. Go to Southend. Or Blackpool. Or Nice. They've all sustained tourism since the late 18th century.
11. We're not tourists, we're travellers
No, you're not. If you leave home for leisure, you're a tourist. 'Travellers' are merely tourists with ideas above their station and odd headgear. There's no moral or qualitative hierarchy of holiday experiences. Flying to Alicante is in no way inferior to flying to Ulaanbaatar. It's just a different departure gate.
12. We always try to soak up local culture
Dangerous. Flamenco is occasionally OK, as is tango in Buenos Aires. That said, fado in Lisbon, dirndl skirts in Bavaria and any folk dancing anywhere have the same effect on a holiday as a colonoscopy.
13. We never stoop to fast food outlets
Believe me, you would – if you saw the alternatives in some resorts I could mention. Put it this way: thank heavens for KFC in Fleetwood, Lancs.
14. We never fly Ryanair – they treat passengers like cattle
No, they don't. Look around you again. It's mainly the passengers who behave like cattle. Ryanair staff undoubtedly take vows of patience. Were I faced with shuffling hordes trying to cram a ton of hand luggage into the overhead locker and a gallon of gin and tonic down their throats, I'd be roaring down the aisle, kicking travellers right and left towards the emergency exits. Which I'd open.
15. We don't buy tourist tat
A pity. Gift shops, their owners and families depend on you buying a small cuckoo clock or plate featuring a bloke in lederhosen blowing an alpenhorn and emblazoned 'Andenken aus Deutschland'.
16. Sorry, but we don't do lying-about-on-the-beach holidays
Yes, we get it; you're way too cultivated for that, way too clever to relax with a book and your family and a glass of rosé and maybe some friends and maybe also a leisurely dip and laughter and a chance to educate the kids ('How do crabs have babies?' 'Sideways') and the sort of relaxation you always say you hanker for, don't have time at home. Why waste time doing all that, when there's a neo-Gothic chapel to explore?