Travel Snobs

Some years ago we went to the Monaco Grand Prix. We stayed with friends near Nice and they organised a lift into Monte Carlo for us. They had a wealthy friend staying with them who informed us that the whole thing would be a rip off, everything would be wildly expensive and food would cost a fortune and basically we might as well not go. We ignored him, got our lift into Monte, bought tickets for 20 euros each, bought very tasty chicken baguettes from a van for about 3euros, and spent a lovely afternoon sitting on the hillside with a few hundred others enjoying the race. We got the train back afterwards. A long wait because there were so many of us but certainly not expensive and not a snob in sight.

We went on a package holiday to Greece. Unfortunately we clashed with what looked like a Rally of the German Socialist Party. We were moved out of our room to an annex because the whole building we were in was allocated to the Germans. They took over in the breakfast room and also at dinner. Pushing and shoving was the norm. It was like being surrounded by Nazis.

In the end we started going to the tavern in the town. It was brilliant....but it was empty because the travel company kept their holidaymakers on site. The poor villages had to put up with the noise, but did not benefit from visitors to the town or restaurants. I felt really sorry for them. We had a great time once we had left the complex and ventured out in to the real world. The people were friendly, the music was good and the food was delicious. Better than German sausages anyway.

The trouble with package holidays is that you often get lumbered with the most boring, horrible people who stick to you like glue.

Why do people put up with 'single supplements'? They sell you one bed, why do you have to pay for two? If the excuse is that you are taking up a double room then they should build more single rooms shouldn't they? What a rip off!

I went on holiday with my son age 9yrs because OH and I were trying to cover the summer school holiday between us. On the first day at Minehead holiday camp, we got talking to a man and his son at the communal lunch…BIG MISTAKE! He followed us around for a couple of days. In the end I had to take my son off site to the sea side to avoid him. Why do men think you are fair game if you are alone?

We've been to Lake Como twice, on a bus, with a budget company. Not everyone's idea of fun, I know, but it's actually dead easy for anyone who can sleep/read on the coach (and boy, can we sleep - I swear I missed Switzerland altogether last time!). We then had an all-inclusive stay for a week in a lakeside hotel, for much less than half the price of others using a more upmarket tour company. And because we paid so little, we could upgrade to a wonderful room with lakeside view and balcony, and still be much better off than those who'd never use a budget option.

The worst example of travel snobbism I know is when my sister and husband won a wonderful Caribbean cruise and met some lovely people, but were treated like the poor relations by one of the couples at their dining table. They were horrible, never missing an opportunity to put them down.

Even worse than travel bores abroad are travel bores at home. We have one who visits our local coffee shop, and he makes sure anyone unfortunate enough to be in earshot has to hear where he's been and where he will be going next week. We do quite a bit of travelling because we like to see new places, but none but our nearest and dearest have to know about it.

I have a very dear friend who is a 'virtuous' travel snob. She makes six or seven long haul trips a year, some to stay with friends, but whenever she goes on holiday, it is a Fair Trade trip visiting remote countries seeing Fair trade projects and buying all her souvenirs from the producers, and does she let us know about it!!

Personally, I think it would be a lot more virtuous if she stayed home and didn't make such a massive contribution to climate change through her air flights. There are plenty of charities, like Practical Action who devote their funds to finding and implementing practical solutions to the many, usually very basic problems, communities like the ones she visits have and can do more to help these communities than her purchase of their products does.

Our children live in Oz and America so when we go on holiday we go to family! But if we were to go by ourselves somewhere, it'd be just that - by ourselves!

Am sure these organised tours are great if you like meeting new people; I do like meeting new people as a rule but I've got one of those faces which attract the bores and the yappers - how do you avoid these people if you want to escape them?!!

Louizalass ... we don't go on tours to meet people, we go as a couple so neither of us has to drive and/or navigate and can enjoy the scenery. Especially for trips that would take in days of driving around to get from A to B, plus organising accommodation, etc. Did two weeks around Spain, Greece and the US within the last several years. We have even taken train trips now and then in the UK just to avoid the driving.

On coach tours, we keep to ourselves once at the accommodation and go out and about on our own as most others do. Some do gravitate to each other and chat and hang about together, others don't! There is no pressure to eat at the same time/place or table unless it's a small village stop where something's been organised.

On the coach, the TD is usually pointing out places of interest, or letting us know what the next stop will be, or often if a long leg of riding, they put on a movie! If we'd done our own driving on the long coach holidays, we would have been knackered (I'm mid 60s, OH is mid 70s).

If you really want to keep to yourself and are not travelling with a companion, take a book or your tablet and keep your head down.

Meant to say in the US it was for the National Parks and involved a lot of driving and our coach had privileges and so we avoided the dreaded queues of cars going through eg Yellowstone. Plus had a better view of wildlife out the elevated window position!

We went on our first cruise, and enjoyed the evening company (the same people each evening), but breakfast and lunch, it was different holidaymakers each and everytime. The first questions were always
Where are you from?
How many cruises have you been on?
What do you do/did?
When we said it was our first cruise, the shock nay horror expressed became wearisome!
We have travelled extensively but wanted to go to the Caribbean and felt a cruise was the best way to see as much as possible.
However, we have decided that this will be our one and only cruise!
Not sure if you would describe them as travel snobs, but most of them expressed their view that cruises were the best way to travel! When we said we were unsure if we would do another cruise, we were distinctly persona non grata!