Why city breaks are replacing some traditional holidays

City breaks are replacing traditional holidays: This year’s version of staying in and holidaying from your spare time (and your local) In years gone by if you could save up for a break it would be a week on a Spanish beach or visiting your family in Australia.

But in this climate (with rising prices and less holiday time left at work/home to spare) more people simply haven’t got the time or money to plan these. Instead holidays have, at least partially, been superseded by city breaks or mini-breaks.

Why weekend escapes fit modern lifestyles

With the best of intentions you plan this big family holiday abroad and we should go somewhere, anywhere for two weeks. However that’s often more feasible in theory than it is practice. When you have commitments like family, social events or work you’re generally unlikely to have two weeks of paid leave in a row – let alone seven or ten unbroken days that won’t fill up with backlogs and catch ups.

That’s one reason a city break has become such an appealing option.

A city break however means that you get away for three or even four days with minimum loss of work/ personal time.

Better transport links make everything easier

Getting the train and being in a city by evening; after having packed just after 17.00 a that day feels manageable – in comparison to booking out two weeks off work. It means more of us have shorter more ‘digestible’ break slots.

Travelling now takes up less of the weekend itself. Instead of losing half a day to complicated transfers, you can spend the afternoon wandering through a local market or settling into a neighbourhood café.

20 years ago a trip abroad involved so many more decisions that most people would have needed three or six months to even organise such trip let alone go! With the transport options today there’s no such issue. So while the traditional 1 week holidays, don’t really have a lot of benefit anymore there’s always more and more people opting to take city breaks with greater frequency.

Choosing experiences over long stays

For example why fly abroad and endure long travelling hours in a tiny confined airplane only to spend your week visiting all of the tourist hot spots if; within the time of an hour travel (or less, sometimes), you’re transported somewhere equally as enticing to visit for the weekend and spend just as much fun seeing a new country.

People today often prefer to make their memories; from spending quality time out the back when on holiday; rather than spent rushing around trying to make all the necessary stops of a city in such limited time. Instead they’ll spend a portion of the afternoon finding an artisan deli and shopping to get a couple of local delicacies; rather than waste time hunting for ‘The Famous Tower’ of city X.

A city breaks will give the individual traveller greater exposure to a place. Rather than visiting and seeing some generic-tacky version of country A; the chances are that when taking a city break; as opposed to touring city ‘C’ out of city ‘C’, D, and E; the traveller will visit something specific such as an exhibition at a local art gallery; and you can spend more of your visit on understanding the specific vibe of country A and see how its various citizens have different tastes and different interests.

Smarter tourism and sustainable travel

The city break will give your experience in the nation more individual flavour; because the individual will see and meet the real world in that country.

We have become more aware of trying not to impact on people and therefore we aim to holiday more responsibly; and this again promotes travelling for shorter durations so that, while travelling more frequently; impacts on people/ environment remains negligible. Walking through residential neighbourhoods and using public transport gives your visit a different character.

More time should and can be spent getting to know a country or city; for if and when; all or just 4 of those weeks you plan to have have gone to holidays outside the country; this will only and already has had impact; so for that very sake, try and holiday in our countries first.