Guilt Trips

Dea Birkett (yes, her) clearly feels under some pressure:

I'm booking a family break abroad. We want somewhere to chill out and do very little indeed. It's a rare treat being able to idle.

Really? I’d have thought it was a pre-requisite for a ‘writer and broadcaster on social issues’...

But I'm struggling to get a package that doesn't demand I spend as much time doing good as having fun.

Are you? I can’t see why, I can find thousands of them with the click of a mouse.

I can go "travelling" or book an "adventure", "experience" or even "mission", as if we were all about to pull on pith helmets and set out to convert the heathen. But sun 'n' sand holidays when a family can flop out together are becoming harder and harder to stamp up on your passport.

I really don't think the people stamping them care, love. So why should you?

Holiday companies are now pandering to this new wave of foreign travel anxiety. First there was carbon offsetting; now there's conscience offsetting. We have to pay a price for selfishly indulging in pure relaxation while on annual leave.

Hey, it's what people like you want, isn't it?

A holiday can't just be enjoyable. It also has to be educational.

Rather like museums. Hmmm, who do we know that has dealing with museums?

Why are we no longer allowed a fortnight of fun? Instead of repackaging holidays as self-sacrificing travel, we should celebrate our ability to break out from routine, spreading our towel out the sunlounger and reading a romcom novel on our Kindle.

That, Dea, is what countless thousands of normal families will be doing this year, and their friends will not be looking down their nose at them or secretly judging them.

If your friends will, well, perhaps that says a bit about the circles you move in, doesn't it?