what is the earliest travel experience that you can recall?
Mine is getting my foot caught in tram track at a seaport in South Africa in 1955, when I was 3years old.
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[ Edit: Edited on 10-Mar-2017, at 10:04 by ADAMYAMEY ]
A very interesting question. I have been told about certain things that happened to me when I was younger but I don't think that I really remember them. So my mother told me that I fell from the sink in a gas station bathroom onto my head when I was a year old, and I don't remember that or the goose-egg that I got from it. I also don't remember holding a python at the Bronx zoo when I was 3.
I do remember watching some ducks and some adult nearby asked which were the male ducks, and I told them how to tell, but I don't know how old I was then. Also I remember being on a train to Colorado to visit my grandmother with my parents and my sister, so I was probably at least five. (Our next trip out there was when I was 10 and we drove, so it was the one before that and after the one when I was 3) . My sister asked my dad to read her a story and he told her that if she would wait until he was finished with what he was doing that he would read her a story. She promptly fell asleep. And I remembered that, because my conclusion was that the best way to fall asleep was to try to stay awake, and that's the way I put myself to sleep ever since that time.
[ Edit: Edited on 10-Mar-2017, at 11:43 by greatgrandmaR ]
Quoting greatgrandmaR
I have been told about certain things that happened to me when I was younger but I don't think that I really remember them.
This is very true. How much does one really remember, and how much is memory of what one has been told?
I never told anyone about my idea about falling asleep, so I figured it was a real memory because no one ever retold it to me. It wasn't part of the family lore like the boa constrictor was
I am now "old fart" retired. I still remember my first grade teacher Miss Blake. When she got married and changed her name my little kid heart was broken and I refused to use her married name!
Same school, same grade. Kids back then got a little bottle of milk in school at our desk. The teacher arranged a visit to a dairy farm to see where milk came from. One farm hand was showing us how to milk a cow. He asked who wants to see a "milk worm" so like many kids anything gross or different was interesting. So I and a couple other curious kids bent over closer for a better look and the guy manipulated the teats to squirt us in the face with fresh milk! (Can't do that today without a massive law suit!) I still remember this first grade and first teacher and the visit to the dairy farm over a half century later even if I might forget what I had for breakfast the day before!!!
Odd topic but interesting!
My earliest travel memory is going to the caravan park down the road. From an early age, I was diagnosed with asthma and my parents booked a week in a caravan in Cromer, Norfolk in 1969. Some friends of my parents had a caravan at a local site, the Humberston Fitties (and if you know that place, you must be a local!) so my parents decided that we'd spend a few days there, just to see how I'd manage in a caravan. An absolute failure! We ended up having the days there and coming home to sleep because I was getting asthma in bed in the caravan (this was before the days of the blue ventolin inhalers). Remarkably, we still ended up going to the caravan in Cromer and I can't remember if my asthma was bad there or not.
Fortunately, inhalers improved my condition and, although I haven't 'grown out of it' like my GP said I would when I was six years old, it's no longer a problem.
Interesting question!
When I was about 18 months old, we had a family holiday in the south of France and went there by overnight train, but I can't remember that journey at all. I'm aware of it, because the daughter of one of our neighbours was inter-railing at the time, and had her passport stolen on a train between Italy and France, only finding out at the border. Somehow, she was allowed to cross as we were very close to Nice where there was a British Consulate so she could get an emergency passport issued. While waiting for the passport, she used to play with me on the pebbly beach, and I had red jelly shoes. The jelly shoes I vaguely remember, although it might just be that I've heard the story repeated hundreds of times so I just think I remember it, and there might have also been a photo of it. Apparently I screamed all the way round Monte Carlo on a day trip there, ruining it for everyone, but I have no recollection of that!
The following year, we went to the Channel Islands and visited Sark for a day. I misbehaved in a shop (hard to believe...) and was given a cuddly toy of a mouse to keep me quiet. I kept it for years, so that might be why I "remember" that.
I definitely remember going to Switzerland by car when I was 4. There was a lido which was freezing cold, there was a painted wooden bridge over a lake which I loved, I cried at dinner time because I was given some sort of fish soup (I would only eat chips at that time), and we went up two mountains, one by cable car and one by train on which my Dad felt ill because he didn't like heights. A very clear memory was being car sick on the way home. For some reason we drove back through Luxembourg, which was very exciting because even at aged 4 I knew all the flags and countries of Europe, but my main memory of Luxembourg was being told off. I don't know what I did, but remember screaming at the side of the road and being told if I didn't behave, they'd drive off and leave me there.
Writing about being car sick triggered another memory, being sick on the way to visit my brother at university in York, which may have been earlier than Switzerland, so that might be the earliest travel memory. I don't think I travelled well in my early years.
I can't remember my early trips. I know I was less than a year old because I've seen pictures of myself with various relatives in other states. Our family is all over the country and we visit each other so start traveling early. Our oldest daughter took her first trip at 16 days of age.
I remember car trips to Indiana to visit favorite cousins and I remember my great-grandmother's funeral when I was five. That was a car trip to Indiana and I loved it because my grandfather stopped at a roadside stand and bought me an all day lollipop . . . that never did get finished. They should call them all-year lollipops!
The first exciting and different trip was a car trip to California to visit an aunt and uncle. I still have some of the photos from that trip. I was 11 then. At 12 my grandmother took me on a train to NYC to visit another aunt and uncle. I've always loved to travel and don't even care where I go. A trip is exciting.
My earliest travel memories are mostly attached to a photo .. I can see a photo in my minds eye & remember or mis-remember bits about it.
When I actually look at a photo, even more memories come back.
Part of my last trip I decided not to take a camera .. I remember not so much that part of the trip compared to the part where I took photos.
Steve
As far as I can remember, we always went on a Sunday drive, but that was local or visiting relatives. For my 1st trip, it would be when I was 13years old and I went with my school on a trip from South Australia to Tasmania for around 10days.