‘You lived on Lays crisps, sex and sambuca': Why the 1990s was the greatest decade for holidays

Telegraph

a day ago

In 1999, I boarded an Alitalia flight to Bangkok with my friend Tanya, a copy of Lonely Planet's Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, and the password for my new Hotmail account.
I remember the air thick with fumes from Marlboro Reds chain-smoked by Italian passengers, and being chatted up by a man in a shark's tooth necklace who invited us to a Koh Pha Ngan guest house co-owned by his 'cool friend' Jed.
The summer before, I'd flown to Pisa to visit a friend on her year abroad while studying languages at Manchester University. Caroline, fuelled by cheap Chianti and cappuccinos, was sleeping her way through the lower ranks of the Italian military. On that trip, I was romanced by the son of a campsite owner near Siena, where I stayed in a €7 tent, attempting to erect it by using my wedge flip-flops to hammer in the pegs.
Both experiences, I now see, were typical of the 1990s – the ultimate era of low-cost, carefree travel. European budget airlines such as easyJet and Ryanair had arrived, but hadn't yet become the penny-pinching outfits they are today.
Thomas Cook, Teletext Holidays and Lunn Poly offered decent all-inclusive packages at bargain prices (£99 was typical for a week in Tenerife – including half-board accommodation and flights – in 1994, the equivalent of £240 today). Trailfinders' round-the-world package deals could get you from the UK to San Francisco, Sydney, Singapore and back again for £784 in 1998 (about £1,600 today).
Noel Josephides, the travel industry veteran and head of Greek specialist Sunvil, agrees that the 1990s were a sweet spot for travel – after the liberalisation of European airspace, but before the arrival of swingeing air taxes and social media-driven overtourism.
'In the 1990s, you suddenly had quick access to destinations that were still untouched by mass tourism,' he says. 'Then, in the 2000s, came the free-for-all of volume tourism – and the party was already over.'
Tim Riley worked for Trailfinders in the Nineties and now runs the insurance company True Traveller. Smoking flights aside, he says, life at 35,000 feet was a pleasure three decades ago. 'Seat selection was free, meals were served in economy as part of your fare, and very few carriers charged for checked baggage,' he explains. 'Best of all, we used travel agents who knew what they were doing, so you didn't have to navigate a dozen confusing websites.'
'The only search algorithm you needed for a great holiday was a high-street travel agent called Carol,' says Seamus McCauley of travel firm Holiday Extras. 'Everyone could just rock up and walk onto a plane without any proper planning or preparation – so there was no need for 'airport dads'.'
'I've got £20, where can I go?'
Megan Lomax remembers phoning travel agents via ads in her local paper and saying: ' I've got £20 – where can I go? '
In 1992, the London-based web designer, now 56, ended up in Seville with her husband, Guy, 59, less than 24 hours after making the call. 'We arrived during the Easter processions,' she recalls. 'We had a map, another couple didn't, and we made friends on the spot – and are still close 30 years later.'
Andrew Middleton, 66, from Hampshire, was a frequent business traveller in the Nineties and also recalls the ease of getting around. 'It wasn't unusual to catch an early flight, do a full day's work in an office in Europe, then return on an evening flight,' he says. 'There were also more perks to being a frequent flyer back then: I remember the higher quality of snacks in the business lounges – and once stepping off a flight from Paris carrying 12 bottles of champagne, thanks to being known by the cabin crew.'
Lomax's experience of forming a lifelong friendship speaks to another hallmark of Nineties travel: human engagement. Without smartphones and translation apps, tourists had to rely on paper maps, ask locals for directions in halting Greek, and raise their gazes while dining – chance meetings that often led to holiday romances, marriages and even business opportunities.
It was an era of printed documents, traveller's cheques, and capturing the moment for posterity – when you could be bothered to put down your smouldering ciggie – with a disposable camera or a roll of 35mm film.
'We had to stand on our own two feet'
If we spoke to the locals more in the 1990s, we often neglected friends and family back home. I sent just two round-robin emails from internet cafés during a three-month trip to Thailand and Cambodia – and what pompous correspondence it was, full of overblown musings.
Alexandra English, 45, from Reigate, took a round-the-world trip aged 19 in the late 1990s and also remembers being out of touch with her parents – an idea that's unconscionable to today's tethered parents and teens.
'I did have a mobile phone, but my shampoo leaked in my bag and it had died by the time I got to Australia,' she recalls. 'Nobody panicked – they just waited for me to turn up weeks later. I had to stand on my own two feet.'
This being the 1990s, sometimes those freedoms curdled into – well – a little too much fun. It was the era of Loaded lads and ladettes, of sex-, sun- and sangria-fuelled Club 18-30 holidays, with tabloids full of lurid tales of young Britons heading overseas to booze and bonk.
Club 18-30 ran sexually suggestive poster ads, created by Saatchi & Saatchi, with taglines like 'Beaver Espana' and 'Girls. Can we interest you in a package holiday?' (accompanied by a photo of a man in white boxer shorts). The Advertising Standards Authority banned them in 1995.
Catherine Warrilow, 46, enjoyed holidays to Malia in Crete in the late 1990s. 'You picked the party town you wanted to go to, went to Thomas Cook and booked two weeks in the sun,' she says.
'It included your flights, a ropey apartment and transfers – and if you were a smoker, you'd book the back rows of the plane so you could chuff away. You lived on Lays crisps, romance and sambuca, and somehow managed to party all night, every night.'
Martin Deeson, 58, one of the founding editors of Loaded magazine, recalls bad behaviour, flowing booze and free flight upgrades. 'The best blag of all was the one for Virgin Atlantic,' he says. 'Briefly, it was possible to check in through a secret door in the underground car park at Heathrow, through which you emerged directly into the upper class lounge.'
Nostalgia aside, perhaps we should all ditch our devices, talk to the locals – and be a bit more, well, Nineties – as we travel this summer.