Things We Used To Do Before Going On Holiday: The Great British Holiday Countdown

There was a time when going on holiday started weeks before you actually went anywhere. Long before the suitcases appeared in the hallway and Dad began wondering whether everything would fit in the boot, there was the planning, the excitement and the seemingly endless discussions about where to go.

For many of us who grew up in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, the holiday itself was only part of the experience. Getting ready was an event in its own right. We studied brochures, visited travel agents, bought things we probably did not need and spent the final few days at home convinced that we had forgotten something important.

Today, booking a holiday can involve a few searches on a phone, a couple of clicks and an email containing all the information you need. Back then, it was a rather different operation. So, let’s take a trip back to the days when the countdown to a fortnight away could be almost as exciting as the holiday itself.

Spending hours looking through holiday brochures

If you wanted to book a package holiday before the internet, the travel agent was often your first port of call. You would browse the shop’s shelves or racks of glossy brochures, each one promising sunshine, sparkling swimming pools, sandy beaches and hotels that looked considerably more glamorous in the photographs than they sometimes did in real life.

Choosing a destination was a serious business. Did you fancy Spain, Majorca, Tenerife or somewhere a little more adventurous? Was the hotel close to the beach? Did it have a swimming pool? How far was it from the airport? And, perhaps most importantly, could you afford it?

The photographs were wonderfully persuasive. A family could spend an evening studying pictures of turquoise water and palm trees, imagining themselves sitting beside the pool with a cold drink. The fact that the photograph might have been taken on the one sunny day of the year was rarely considered.

There was also the pleasure of collecting brochures and bringing them home. They would be spread across the living-room floor or the dining table, with family members pointing at different hotels and offering opinions. Someone would inevitably find a place that looked perfect, only for somebody else to notice that it was miles from anywhere.

Today, online reviews, travel comparison sites and photographs uploaded by other holidaymakers can tell us a great deal about a destination. Back then, we had the brochure, the travel agent’s advice and perhaps a recommendation from somebody at work who had been there the previous summer.

And if the hotel turned out to be disappointing, there was no quick way to discover that hundreds of other guests had experienced exactly the same thing.

Visiting the travel agent in person

Booking a holiday was often a proper outing. You went into a travel agency, sat down with somebody who knew the destinations and worked through the options. There might be a map on the wall, a display of brochures and a desk covered in paperwork.

You could ask questions, discuss dates, compare prices and try to find something that suited everybody. If you were lucky, the travel agent could explain the difference between the hotels you had been considering and steer you towards something more suitable.

Once you had made your decision, the booking process involved forms, payment arrangements and paperwork. You would leave with confirmation of your plans and a sense that the holiday was finally becoming real.

For children, there was often a special moment when the adults announced that the holiday had been booked. Suddenly, the destination was no longer just a picture in a brochure. It was somewhere you were actually going.

These days, many people book online at any hour of the day, sometimes while sitting on the sofa or waiting for a train. It is undeniably convenient, but there was something reassuring about having a real person help organise the trip, especially if you were travelling abroad for the first time.

Counting down the days on the calendar

Once the holiday was booked, the countdown began.

For children, the departure date could seem impossibly far away. You might count the weeks on a calendar, tell your friends where you were going and repeatedly ask how much longer you had to wait.

As the date approached, the excitement grew. Two weeks suddenly became one week, and then it was only a few days until you were off.

Parents, meanwhile, had rather different things on their minds. There were clothes to wash, money to organise, arrangements to make for the house and a long list of things that needed sorting before departure. While the children imagined beaches and swimming pools, the adults were probably wondering whether the car needed checking and whether anybody had remembered to arrange for the milk to be stopped.

The final week could feel like a strange mixture of excitement and ordinary life. You still had school or work to deal with, but your mind was already somewhere else.

And there was always that wonderful feeling when you reached the final day and realised that, after all the waiting, tomorrow was finally the day.

Buying new clothes especially for the holiday

A holiday often meant buying a few new things, even if the family budget was already stretched.

There might be a new swimming costume, a pair of sandals, some shorts or a lightweight shirt. If you were going abroad, perhaps you needed clothes suitable for warmer weather. If you were going to a British seaside resort, you would probably need a jumper as well, because nobody trusted the weather quite enough to pack for sunshine alone.

Children sometimes received new holiday outfits that their parents considered perfectly sensible but which they would never have chosen themselves. You might be expected to wear them for a family photograph, a meal out or the journey, even if you would have preferred to stay in your comfortable old T-shirt.

Then there were the accessories. Sunglasses, sun hats, beach bags and inflatable toys all had to be considered. Every shop seemed to have something that might be useful, and the closer the departure date came, the more convincing these purchases became.

Of course, the new clothes often had to be tried on, washed and packed. Somebody would inevitably discover that the shorts bought a month earlier no longer fitted, or that the sandals were uncomfortable after five minutes.

Today, online shopping makes it easier to order holiday clothes from home, while many travellers pack lighter and buy things when they arrive. But the pre-holiday shopping trip remains a familiar ritual for plenty of families.

The great suitcase operation

Packing was where the holiday began to feel serious.

The suitcases would come down from the loft, out of the cupboard or from wherever they had been stored since the previous summer. In some homes, they were enormous, heavy cases that seemed to weigh a ton before anything had been put inside them.

Then came the challenge of fitting everything in.

Clothes were folded, rolled or simply pushed into whatever space remained. Shoes had to be squeezed around the edges. Toiletries were packed carefully, while towels and swimming gear seemed to occupy half the available room.

Parents often worked from a list, ticking things off as they went. Children were told to pack their own bags, only for an adult to inspect them and discover that somebody had brought three toys, no clean socks and enough books for a six-month expedition.

The final suitcase was often a masterpiece of domestic engineering. If it closed without somebody sitting on it, that was considered a success.

For families travelling by car, the luggage operation was only half the battle. Everything had to fit into the boot, often alongside a pushchair, beach equipment, food and whatever else the family insisted was essential.

Modern lightweight suitcases with wheels have made travelling considerably easier. But anyone who remembers wrestling with a heavy case up a flight of stairs will appreciate that not every aspect of holiday preparation needs to be brought back.

Making a list, then making another list

Before smartphones and digital reminders, holiday preparation often relied on handwritten lists.

There might be a list of clothes, another for toiletries, one for things to do before leaving the house and perhaps a separate list of items that had to be packed at the last minute.

The list-maker was usually the person who remembered everything. They knew where the passports were, whether the travel documents had been collected and whether somebody had packed the sun cream.

Unfortunately, lists did not always prevent arguments. They simply provided another document that could be consulted while everybody argued about whether something had been packed.

There was also the inevitable question of what could be packed early and what had to remain available until the final morning. Toothbrushes, medication and everyday toiletries could not always go into the suitcase several days in advance. As a result, a collection of supposedly essential items would remain scattered around the bathroom until departure.

Today, shared digital lists and phone reminders can make the whole process more organised. You can even download packing checklists designed for specific destinations. Yet the traditional handwritten list still has its fans, particularly among people who like the satisfaction of crossing things off with a pen.

Getting the car ready for the big journey

For families driving to the coast, a caravan park or an airport, preparing the car was an important part of the holiday countdown.

Dad might check the oil, tyres and water, clean the windows and make sure the car was ready for the journey. If the vehicle had been making an unusual noise for several weeks, the holiday deadline was an excellent reason to investigate it.

The boot had to be emptied of all the things that had accumulated since the previous trip. Old shopping bags, coats, umbrellas and mysterious objects that nobody could identify were removed to make room for the luggage.

Then came the packing puzzle. Suitcases went in first, followed by smaller bags and anything that could be squeezed into the remaining gaps. The aim was to leave enough room for everything while ensuring that the rear window was not completely blocked.

If you were travelling with children, the back seat had to accommodate passengers, snacks, books, toys and whatever was required to prevent the familiar question, “Are we nearly there yet?”

Roof racks and roof boxes provided extra capacity for some families, although loading them could become an engineering project of its own. Everything had to be secured, and somebody always seemed convinced that there was room for just one more bag.

Modern cars offer more storage options, and sat navs have transformed the business of finding your way. But the basic challenge of fitting a family’s entire holiday into a vehicle remains remarkably familiar.

Finding the maps and planning the route

Before sat navs became commonplace, planning a long journey often meant consulting a road atlas or a paper map.

The route might be studied the evening before departure, with the driver trying to memorise the major roads, junctions and towns along the way. A passenger might be appointed navigator, responsible for following the map and giving directions at the appropriate moment.

Of course, the navigator could only be as good as the person reading the map. Arguments were possible when the driver missed a turning, the passenger became confused or both discovered that they had been looking at different pages.

There was also the business of planning stops. Where would you stop for a cup of tea? Was there a service station on the route? Would you have a picnic somewhere pleasant, or push on until you reached your destination?

A journey to the seaside could be an adventure in itself, especially when traffic built up and progress slowed to a crawl. The motorway might have offered a faster route, but a busy summer weekend could still turn a relatively straightforward trip into a long day.

Today, a phone can provide live traffic updates, alternative routes and estimated arrival times. If you miss a turning, it simply recalculates. There is no need to unfold a map across the dashboard or ask a stranger for directions.

That is certainly progress, although some of us might argue that a good old-fashioned argument over the route was part of the family holiday experience.

Buying the holiday essentials

The days before departure often involved a final shopping trip for all the things that would make the holiday complete.

Sun cream was essential, particularly if you were heading somewhere warmer than Britain. There might be after-sun lotion, insect repellent, travel sickness tablets and a collection of toiletries that somehow seemed more important when packed into small bottles.

For a beach holiday, you needed buckets and spades, inflatable toys, towels and perhaps a windbreak. If you were going camping, the list became much longer, with sleeping bags, torches, cooking equipment and all the other essentials required to turn a patch of grass into a temporary home.

There were also the little things that seemed indispensable at the time. A new paperback for the journey, a packet of playing cards, a travel game or a disposable camera might all find their way into the shopping basket.

And, naturally, there were snacks. No British family holiday was complete without provisions for the journey, even if the plan was to stop at a service station along the way. Sandwiches, crisps, biscuits and sweets were packed with the expectation that somebody would become hungry long before the next stop.

Modern supermarkets and online retailers make it easy to buy most of these things at short notice. But the pre-holiday shopping trip still has a special atmosphere, particularly when the shelves are full of brightly coloured beach toys and travel-sized products.

Making arrangements for the house

Going away involved more than packing suitcases. Somebody had to make sure the house was ready to be left empty for a week or two.

The post might need collecting, plants needed watering and arrangements had to be made for pets. A trusted neighbour or relative might be asked to keep an eye on things, open the curtains occasionally or take in anything delivered while the family was away.

If you had a newspaper delivery, you might arrange for it to be suspended. Lights and appliances were checked, windows were closed and doors were locked. The final walk around the house could feel like a security inspection.

There was also the possibility of asking somebody to feed the cat, look after the dog or water the garden. The person doing the favour would often be rewarded with a souvenir or a box of chocolates on the family’s return.

Today, smart-home technology allows some people to monitor their properties remotely, control lights from a phone and receive alerts if something happens. Yet most of the basic tasks remain the same. The house still needs to be secured, the plants still need water and somebody still has to look after the pets.

The final night before departure

By the evening before the holiday, the excitement was usually impossible to ignore.

The suitcases were lined up in the hallway, the travel documents had been checked and most of the packing was complete. The house looked slightly chaotic, with bags, coats and various last-minute essentials waiting to be loaded.

Parents might set an early alarm, while children struggled to sleep because they were too excited. Even adults who had spent weeks organising everything could find themselves mentally checking the list one last time.

There was always the possibility that something important had been forgotten. A passport might be in the wrong bag, a charger might still be plugged into the wall or somebody might suddenly remember an item that had not been mentioned for days.

Then came the final question: what time are we leaving?

The answer was usually earlier than at least one person wanted. If the journey involved an airport, there was a strict timetable to follow. If the family was driving to the coast, the adults might be determined to beat the traffic by leaving before sunrise.

The night before departure was a mixture of anticipation and mild anxiety. You were excited about the holiday, but you also knew that getting there would require one final burst of organisation.

The holiday started when you left home

Perhaps the biggest difference between preparing for a holiday then and now is how much of the experience has moved online.

We can compare prices, read reviews, book flights, check in, download boarding passes and plan routes without leaving the sofa. Many of the old chores have become quicker and easier.

But the anticipation remains. We still look forward to the first day away, the chance to escape our normal routine and the feeling that we have something different to enjoy.

For those who grew up with travel brochures, paper maps and suitcases that needed two people to lift them, the preparation itself brings back memories. It was a time when a holiday felt like a major event, something the whole family worked towards and talked about for weeks.

And once everything was finally packed, the car loaded and the front door locked, the excitement really began. The familiar streets disappeared behind you, the journey stretched ahead and the possibilities seemed endless.

Whether you were heading to a caravan in Cornwall, a hotel in Spain or a week at the British seaside, you were on holiday at last.

What do you remember most about getting ready for a holiday? Was it the travel brochures, the packing chaos, the early-morning drive or the argument over the best route? And what was the one thing your family never left home without? Share your memories with Atom Radio.