‘People would sit on the beach wearing smart clothes’: What readers miss most about travel

Readers reminisced about all the things they used to do on holiday, including thumbing through brochures and sending postcards

Telegraph Travel’s Chris Leadbeater recently revealed his definitive list of the 23 things we used to do on holiday but don’t anymore, from sending postcards to carrying drachma. 
His feature produced a wave of nostalgia from readers as they reflected on their own travels from a bygone era. 
They agreed that being uncontactable and developing proper photos were among the ways holidays used to be better. However, many – on balance – said they preferred the convenience of modern travel. 
Reader Alan Spooner, like Chris, fondly recalled picking up physical holiday brochures from a high street travel agent – “usually at the bleakest time of year, then thumbing through and selecting one white concrete hotel against an implausibly blue sea and sky from all the other white concrete hotels.”
Alan also enjoyed “using the handy little chart at the back of the brochure to see the cost for two weeks for your chosen date, before dashing down to Lunn Poly to book it. Happy days.”
“Smartphones and instant connectivity have wiped away quite a few good things in life,” wrote Chris Leadbeater, “including leaving a bag of canisters gathering dust on a shelf. Repeatedly promising that ‘yeah, I’ll take them in’. Finally getting round to doing so in mid-October, and heading off to a high-street developers – only to find you had your finger over the lens half the time.”
Reader Daniel Callaghan also appreciated the delayed gratification of having his holiday photos developed. He said he missed “waiting for and then collecting the holiday ‘snaps’, then reliving the moments while laughing out loud. 
“I’m not a luddite but there’s too much instant gratification now,” he added.
Sian Pateman concurred: “The excitement and anticipation of getting the developed holiday photos back from the chemist was something else. It was something to look forward to in the post-holiday slump.’’
And Michael Gibson shared: “My late mother (God bless her) was on holiday in Italy in the 1930s with her Kodak Brownie camera. Her snap of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was straightened to vertical by the chemist developing and printing her photos back in London because he thought she had been leaning when she took the photo. So helpful!”
Another largely lost habit in the modern age of travel? Sending postcards. An anonymous reader suggested “the point of postcards was to tell people you were thinking of them, and that to be out of sight wasn’t to be out of mind – I loved getting them too.’’ 
Of course this communication form is not completely dead – Sarah High, for example, said: “While my friend was busy uploading her photographs to Facebook earlier this year, I was busy writing postcards to three other very close friends!”
“It would have been all too easy to send them a message, but I thought it would be much nicer, and feel to me much more as if I was on holiday, if I wrote and sent postcards,’’ she added. 
And while finding and buying postcards is easy enough nowadays, Sarah noted that finding stamps was less so. “Locating stamps in southern Italy proved a bit more difficult! And yes, they did arrive after I had got home!’’
Meanwhile, Emmeline Lucas recounted an array of former holiday favourites, including four-hour coach tours, visiting model villages, attending ‘End of the Pier’ shows, and riding a donkey. 
Emmeline also missed seeing “people sitting on the beach wearing exactly the same clothes that they usually wear, possibly without a tie.” 
On the same point, reader Debra Greiff remembered her father in the 1970s wearing “holiday clothes”, which her mother “only let him wear twice a year on our two annual holidays. All the rest of the time it was a suit, shirt and tie.”
Perhaps the most appreciated aspect of bygone holidays was being completely off-grid and uncontactable. A former flight attendant, Jennifer Eccles shared her experience: “Being out of contact was bliss! We’d be desperate for the incoming crew to bring any newspapers left on their aircraft, so we could catch up on home news. The disadvantage of course was that you’d miss so much going on with loved ones. But it was more fun in many ways!”
Reader Brian Lambert advised: “I know it will come as a shock to many of The Telegraph’s younger readers, but you can still turn your mobile phone off while on holiday, even in 2024!”
A notable omission from Chris Leadbeater’s list was the classic hotel wake-up call, a feature reader Daisy Walker was perhaps glad to be rid of in today’s age of smartphones; she said she would lie awake all night in anticipation of it.
Also not on our list, Alice Taylor relished being forced to eat unfamiliar foods on holiday. “Before ubiquitous fast food and international restaurant chains, one was forced to use local cafés and restaurants that didn’t offer bog-standard Brit fare,” she said. “This was before it was cool to eat something weird, so sitting in a café and seeing nothing available but fresh local fare wasn’t a joy, it was a danger. And they didn’t offer chips, either.”
John Rogers reminisced about the reliability of transport. In the late 1940s, his grandparents went on holiday from Liverpool to Scotland by train, he said. They sent home a postcard asking John’s mother to get everyone fish and chips for tea on the day they came home, and told her the time that the train would arrive.
“She did, and they got home while the fish and chips were still hot. Imagine relying on a postcard to arrive in time, and then expecting the train to get in on time as well,” he added.
Many readers simply appreciated taking a stroll down memory lane. Reader John Lewis said the article brought cheer to his morning. Jane Price-Hunt similarly loved reading the list, but ultimately concluded that “travel plans have moved onwards and upwards.’’