Foreign Perspectives

If you’re going a fair distance and will be in a country where you have relatives then chances are that you’ll have to see them.

However, don’t forget that this can substantially distort “your” holiday. For one thing, if you’re going far enough they’ll probably feel obliged to organise lots of stuff for you to see and do whilst you’re there. If they’re cousins who you’ve never seen or perhaps ones who you’ve only seen at home and this is a return visit then you can pretty much forget about going to where you might want to go.

Oh, don’t get me wrong: it’s nice to have them offer to take you around various places but you can sometimes end up getting dragged round all the relatives in the area which can seriously eat up holiday time. If that looks likely to happen you need to be clear on why you’re going to visit them: is it because you’re going to that country anyway and dropping in to say “hi”, or is it specifically to see them? The answer makes an enormous difference. For example, we were going around the world once and planning on dropping in to see one family along the trip but some people over here couldn’t understand why we weren’t spending our entire holiday with them!