Discover the beauty and diversity on your doorstep on a UK holiday, says Silver Travel Advisor managing director Debbie Marshall
An article in a national newspaper went to town on Brexit last month, and what it might mean to anyone contemplating a departure from these shores post-March 29.
It talked of queues at airports for flights that might not take off; confusion with passports and permits; car rental challenges; currency losses; invalid insurance; no reciprocal healthcare; and expensive mobile phone usage. On and on the list went, layering the doom and gloom, before culminating with the final whammy: the abolition of pet passports.
Respected journalist Martin Lewis chipped in on his money-saving website, with the ‘Eight urgent travel checks you need to make to travel post‑Brexit’ with the emphasis on matters requiring immediate attention.
Scaremongering indeed, and Travel Weekly has spoken out more than once against the consumer press highlighting potential barriers to travel.
Safety and security
However, the impact is making itself felt across the industry, and especially among the silver generation, whose mantra of certainty, safety and security has never seemed more important.
Older people are becoming more adventurous than ever before, but the risk of finding oneself in a foreign country being denied healthcare or unable to rent a car, may simply not be worth taking.
Unsurprisingly then, in the latest Silver Travel Industry report, when older travellers were asked to vote for their favourite type of holiday, well over 40% chose a UK break, a significant increase on the previous year. And, in these uncertain times, a holiday closer to home is becoming more appealing than ever.
With prescient timing the British Tourism & Travel Show takes place at the NEC this week, celebrating domestic tourism and “the very best of Britain and Ireland”. The organisers claim that leisure breaks, day trips and group visits are booming, and it looks like 2019 is set to break all records.
Beaches, wildlife and history
And there’s much to recommend of our green and pleasant land. I recently went to a conference on the Isle of Man, a place I knew little about, and what a revelation it turned out to be. It’s far from the madding crowd, with a stunning coastline, sandy beaches, quaint villages and an abundance of wildlife, history and culture. I’m planning to return in the summer for a week’s walking around the 98-mile coastal path. It all seems so easy, the antidote to busy airports and flight delays. In the past year I have travelled to the Lake District and the west of Scotland, as well as Dorset, Norfolk and Northern Ireland, with the beaches on the Antrim coast rivalling any in the Med or Caribbean, albeit with chillier water.
And it seems I’m part of a trend. Pioneering traveller Hilary Bradt may have been the first Brit to truly discover Madagascar – with her guidebook still in print – but these days she stays closer to home and has embraced later life with the publication of Bus Pass Britain and Slow Devon & Exmoor. You’re more likely to find Hilary singing the praises of bluebells, beech trees, country pubs and cream teas than on an East African island.
Bored with Brexit? Keep it British.
