ABROAD (three questions)

How old were you when you first went abroad?

Since then, what is the longest time you've spent in your country without going abroad?

What is the longest continuous time you've spent abroad without returning to your country?

16- school trip to france via crystal palace riots iirc

Think i've been abroad at least once a year since then

Worked for a month on a trawler in the north sea when i was 21, so technically out of the country i guess. Interrailed around europe for a month when i was 24.

1) 7 or 8, NYC
2) About four years I think? University + the year after it, couldn't afford holiday of own. No idea how other students managed to do it (and then moan about being broke, tuition fees etc at the same time)
3) I think the five-week family holiday in Canada as a kid

1) 7 or 8, Holland
2) Four years between last family holiday and first holiday as a student. Couldn't afford one.
3) Just two weeks I think. I've been to a lot of places but I've never had the traveller's desire to keep rolling.

How old were you when you first went abroad?
Quite young - maybe still a baby/toddler to visit family in France.

Since then, what is the longest time you've spent in your country without going abroad?
Christ, I actually don't know. Maybe a year?

What is the longest continuous time you've spent abroad without returning to your country?
No more than 5 or 6 weeks during school summer holidays. I've never been "proper" travelling.

1)8, camping holiday in Brittany

2)Just under four years, like Lex - the three years of university and most of the year after it (due to having no money and a complete inability to get holiday work in the early 90s recession).

3) I was going to say about 10.5 months in Italy, but I've just remembered I went home for two weeks at Christmas, so about 7 months.

1) 13-ish? School day-trip to Calais
2) Must've spent a good ten years after I left school without going abroad
3) A couple of weeks in France I think

1) One, to Italy to see my grandparents
2) A couple of years maybe?
3) Three months, when I lived in Bologna (was there 9 months but came home twice)

1) a school trip to France which at best guess was just before my 17th birthday. I then went on holiday with my family, also to France, about three days later, which I thought was amazing
2) I'm in it right now - two-and-a-bit years since trip to Japan, which will be nearly three before I leave blighty next (Ireland doesn't count naturally)
3) about six months in France, though I did go to Africa leaving from Gatwick during this period, so lop about six weeks off if you're being strict about it

fu ik

Heh, do you count the uk as abroad?

Re: (2) - I recently went over 3 years (April 2007-Aug 2010) without going abroad, which was quite unusual, and thinking about that is what kickstarted this thread

don't really, but this is a context thing ie it don't matter if we consider you abroad but you damn well better consider it of us.

you got 'form'

How old were you when you first went abroad?
I was born abroad. If that doesn't count, I guess around age 2 when I came back to my parents' country with them.

Since then, what is the longest time you've spent in your country without going abroad?
Max 8 months.

What is the longest continuous time you've spent abroad without returning to your country?
2 years probably.

Feeling that and hands up xp, but also doubting that you get all offended at being able to live*, work*, vote, etc over here? I'm just looking for consistency here, that's all I'm asking, where is the consistency?

* of historical note only now I guess

ye've consistently invaded us how's that?

sorry about that

1) Like a lot of people it seems, 7 or 8. France.
2) Chalk me up for another one who was stuck here for most of college. Around three years i'd say.
3) Lived in Canada for a year

don't think that was ik, tbf (xp)

How old were you when you first went abroad?
5 - holiday in the fascist dictatorship of Spain.
Since then, what is the longest time you've spent in your country without going abroad?
6 years between 2005 and 2011.
What is the longest continuous time you've spent abroad without returning to your country?
2 weeks of course, I'm not a bloody student.

1) 13 - on a school trip to Germany.
2) 7 years - from aforementioned school trip until a university field course to Mallorca
3) 3 weeks in Canada

How old were you when you first went abroad?
Maybe 6 or 7. The first trip abroad without my parents was when I was 16, to Brussels.

Since then, what is the longest time you've spent in your country without going abroad?
If you don't count cruise boat trips to Stockholm and Tallinn (everyone in Helsinki does them, so they don't feel like proper abroad trips to me), maybe 4 years. After high school and during the first couple of years at the university I was poor, didn't have money for trips abroad (besides the cruises mentioned above).

What is the longest continuous time you've spent abroad without returning to your country?
About 3 or 4 weeks, was traveling in Eastern Europe by bus with friends.

tryin to think why going away during college wasn't a problem for me, coming up with;

1. I was working 30 hrs a week
2. Lol ryanair
3. Lol celtic tiger

1)How old were you when you first went abroad?

My dad was in the RAF, we were stationed in Brugen, so I'd have been about two.5. My sister was born out there. We came back when I got to school age.

2) Since then, what is the longest time you've spent in your country without going abroad?

Probably from that school starting, to 8 years later (fam hol Spain), then another 8 years after that (fam hol, Venice).

3)What is the longest continuous time you've spent abroad without returning to your country?

Well, from age two to five. Excluding that, the 'working holiday' in Turkey with the showgroup, three weeks in one stretch...

My first trip 'abroad' was to California when I was 5. I count it as 'abroad' because my city in Canada is one of the ones that's nowhere near the US/Can border.
Then had a 10-year period of not travelling until a school trip abroad.
Longest time gone without going back home was 16 months.

1. 7 years old, the Algarve

2. Was going to say I hadn't been abroad since 2006 (Germany) but damn my colonialist subconscious for not counting weekend trips to Dublin and Donegal, so probably 2 or 3 years
(wrote this before reading Ismael and Darragh's posts, sry Darragh! tbf if you are driving from Belfast Donegal doesn't feel very abroad, the only road sign at the border doesn't even say anything about changing countries iirc, just that speed limits are now in kilometres)

3. 3 weeks in California (only time I've been outside Europe so wanted to go for a bit longer and do a bit of travelling round CA)

the other half and I are not big travellers, him even more reluctant than me - I'm beginning to get a little itchy to go somewhere completely different or maybe try out the German I've been learning, but we find it hard enough to get our act together for a weekend somewhere 2 hours' drive away

1) 9 - holiday in Spain. This seems to have been an experimental family holiday - we went again the following year, and then always stayed in the UK after that.

2) 5 years - 1999 - 2000. Extended skint period in first flat. Bit of an ordeal listening tooter people's holiday stories during that time.

3) 2 and a bit weeks - Malaysia/Singapore/Penang.

*five years - 1995 to 2000 (maths isn't my strong point)

torn between 'i'm not actually bothered' and 'BELFAST IS FOREIGN YE PERFIDIOUS ROYALISTS'

It's funny how every country seems to have a close neighbour people don't really count as abroad: USA/Canada, UK/Ireland, Finland/Sweden/Estonia.

On the other hand, I've never been Russia, but I'd definitely count that as "abroad", even though it's just as near as Sweden and Estonia. Sweden is just too similar to Finland to feel foreign, and Estonian language being close to Finland makes it feel more familiar (even though as a society it's quite different due to being part of the Eastern Bloc), but Russia definitely feels like a foreign country.

"Estonian language being close to Finnish"

I guess for the American, Mexico is more "abroad" than Canada? Or is it?

Hold up a minute, going from Northern Ireland to the Republic definitely doesn't count as "Abroad"

1. 22, Berlin
2. five and a bit years since my last proper holiday which was
3. two weeks in Canada during the 2006 World Cup

it's not innate love of my surroundings that keeps me bolted to the effing ground here, I will say that much

number none shouldn't you be out......MARCHING

Yeah, i was gonna say i meant nothing political by that but c'mon

never/31 years/erm, i've seen france on the horizon if that counts

(xp to Tuomas, sort of) Yeah, I was thinking when I wrote that about the road signs that it doesn't feel like a proper border crossing to me if you don't have to stop and get out passports, but that's just my British background showing I guess

I mean there are no border controls on mainland European roads, so if you grew up in e.g. Belgium, do you have a higher number of countries which don't count as going properly abroad to you, or does the conflation of "abroad" with "having to show paperwork" or "going somewhere with a completely different culture and/or climate" just seem alien?

I grew up 15 mins from the border so i guess going to Derry or whatever didn't seem like a big deal to me even though the checkpoints were still there at that point

It's the same with me. It's not been that long since Finland entered the Schengen Agreement, and it still feels a bit odd not needing to show your passport when traveling in the EU.

(x-post)

on a night train journey from vienna to prague we were woken three times to show our passports due to the route crossing the czech/austrian border. Clownish

I was really surprised there was no border control when crossing France to Belgium the other week.

I've never been abroad \o/. Poor/working class family where if we did go on proper holiday (as opposed to day trips) it'd be to Blackpool, followed by year upon year of being a student. But this coming year for the first time in ever I'll have enough money to do stuff, and stuff I plan to do.

glad it's not just me then

A couple of years ago I took the ferry from Helsinki to Rostock, and I didn't need to show a passport, identification, or even my ticket! Previously the ferry to Rostock had left from a passenger harbour which services tourist ferries, and they had a proper ID and ticket checkup there... But then the ferry line was moved to another harbour which mostly handles cargo ships, and I guess they just didn't bother to install proper checkup points there, since the Rostock ferry is not very popular with tourists. So I could've just walked to the ship without any papers at all.

1. Age 1, don't know where, the States maybe? Dad was a pilot, family travelled frequently.

2. This is the longest stretch I can remember - 22 months. (I spent 11 years before that abroad, and came home every 6 to 8 months).

3. 11 months, 2006/2007.

Hold up a minute, going from Northern Ireland to the Republic definitely doesn't count as "Abroad"

I've flown from Heathrow to Belfast - does that count as 'abroad'? (I didn't count it as such)

regardless of whether it "feels" like it, surely it's obvious that abroad = going into a different country. so yes, UK into Ireland = going abroad

1. about 2
2. years and years and years!
3. about a year and 5 months

1. 8
2. 17 years
3. 1 week

I probably didn't leave London for at least 12 years at one point.

1. at about age 3 we crossed the Canadian border at Niagara Falls; otherwise, age 20 to Mexico (& finally at 22 to Europe)
2. 2 years? might be more like a year. Lately (last three years or so) more like four months.
3. 14 months

je suis américain btw

1. 8 years old (Toronto)
2. 7 years between March 1999 (see below) and April 2006 (Montreal)
3. 6 months between Sept. 1998 and March 1999 (mostly in Lancaster, England)

1. If "abroad" means a 16-hour road trip from the US to Canada (usually Montreal but sometimes Toronto, or both), about 5 years old (maybe earlier, wouldn't remember) and nearly every summer thereafter 'til well into my 20s. I've also been to Hawaii - I know, same country, but it feels like going abroad - for a week (yes, the beaches are as amazing as you've heard, & so are the macadamia nuts), and to San Juan, Puerto Rico for 10 days (which is a US territory but not part of the US proper, and feels even more like going overseas to another country).
2. Sadly haven't been abroad for 11 years, and no prospect for that changing anytime soon
3. Spent about 3 weeks in Canada a few times

2. This is the longest stretch I can remember - 22 months. (I spent 11 years before that abroad, and came home every 6 to 8 months).

heh now that I've thought about it, it's actually more like 12 months - i forgot that around this time last year I went to Bandung, Indonesia, which is basically your Malaysian equivalent of traveling from the US to Canada.

tryin to think why going away during college wasn't a problem for me, coming up with;

1. I was working 30 hrs a week
2. Lol ryanair
3. Lol celtic tiger

― hipstery nayme (darraghmac), Wednesday, September 7, 2011 11:15 AM (5 hours ago)

lol yeah, since college i don't think i've ever spent more than 9 months at a time w/o fecking off somewhere

but i mean a lot of that is being encouraged to go see exhibitions and stuff

5 if going to Ensenada counts, otherwise 15 when I went to Britain, though the cross-country trip I took when I was 10 felt pretty foreign at times.

Probably no more than two years have passed that I haven't left the country since age 15.

I spent something like 2 years abroad w/o even returning for Christmas or Thanksgiving and did it again a few years later.

1. Two years old - went to Trinidad and Tobago
2. Twenty-one years - didn't leave the UK again until after university. Leave 10+ times a year now, though.
3. Two months travelling around China in 2005

1. 9, moving to the US for a couple of years w/ family
2. 4 years, university, couldnt afford it, left as soon as it finished
3. hmm 3 years i guess? ive been living in london for 5 years now + have only been home once

1. 11 - school trip to St Malo, France.
2. I guess the 3 years between French exchange trip at 13 and school trip to Tunisia at 16.
3. 3 months in LA in 2003.

actually 2. would probably be 4 years between Tunisia and exchange term at TCD at 20