Travelling for pleasure - What Did it Looked Like Through the Decades?

by Jerry S. Jerry Stark is a professional writer and publisher

People living in the Middle Ages went on pilgrimages to travel for pleasure, even if they actually did it for religious reasons. But we cannot consider pilgrimages vacations because they don’t have the same purposes. Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales in the 14th century about a group of people who were making a pilgrimage to Canterbury. In Europe, people regularly went on expeditions to places like Winchester and Rome. Some of them even travelled abroad to countries like Jerusalem.

In England, the pilgrimages period ended during the reign of Henry VIII when the shrines of saints were destroyed. In the Middle Ages, people celebrated no holidays and therefore, they had little reason to travel besides work, war, or religious reasons. During holy days people could rest. They engaged in activities that didn’t require them to leave their home. They usually danced or played a rough form of the team sports we know today.

During the Tudor period, people celebrated all the 12 days of Christmas, from 25th December to 6th January. However, they didn’t celebrate all days the same way. They didn’t work during this period, except for looking after animals. People took the opportunity to visit their families and friends because Christmas was considered a community celebration.

Only in the late 17th century, it becomes common for wealthy young people to travel abroad and have a Grand Tour of Europe to complete their education. Often the tour lasted years, and the participants would visit the most famous destinations in Europe.

At the end of the 18th century, rich people started the tradition of spending vacation time at the seaside because they discovered that bathing in seawater was good for their health. Seaside destinations boomed in popularity, and many people built lodging houses where they could reside during the warm season. Richard Hotham created the first seaside resort at Bagnor to enable people to benefit from all the amenities they need to enjoy pleasant vacations.

The Grand Tour was quite popular during the 18th century

The French Revolution marked the end of the period of Enlightenment and travel for young Europeans. Young wealthy people of the 17th and 18th centuries spent around two years away from home, touring Europe, completing their education, and broadening their knowledge of culture, geography, architecture, and language. The entire experience was known under the name the Grand Tour during the era. The period came to an end at the close of the 18th century.

Privileged young people started a trend that required them to travel across the continent searching for cultural and art experiences that helped them broaden their knowledge. The practice has quickly gained popularity, and it was named the Grand Tour. Richard Lassels introduced the term in the book Voyage to Italy written in 1670. There were developed tour guides, speciality guidebooks, and other resources the participants could use during this period. The tourism industry found ways to meet the needs of rich young students and their tutors who explored the European continent for two years. They were wealthy enough to fund lengthy trips abroad for themselves and ensured they took full advantage of what the Grand Tour had to offer. They often carried letters of introduction or reference with them to engage with other people easily. Many tourists had the purpose of continuing their education during the Grand Tour, but some engaged in the trip only for fun and leisurely purposes. Most desired a combination of both because they could easily mix education and pleasure.

A typical journey through Europe was quite long and challenging during that period, and the travellers had to make multiple stops. It was pretty different from present times when people can plan a trip in days and reach their destination in a couple of hours by aeroplane. A destination like Turks and Caicos that is very popular among European travellers due to its luxury yacht charter cruises is quite accessible due to aeroplanes and modern transportation means.

The most common route of the Grand Tour started in the United Kingdom, then across the English Channel to La Manche. However, during the 18th century, people had difficulty even crossing the English Channel. The trip from Dover to Calais took them three days because it was challenging to cross the wide channel. The travellers often dealt with illness, seasickness, and sometimes even shipwreck.

Popular destinations during the Grand Tour

Young people were usually interested in visiting the destinations considered major centres of culture in the 18th century, so they put cities such as Rome, Venice, Paris, Naples, and Florence on their list. The average Grand Tourist travelled from a city to another, spending weeks in small cities and months in major ones. Paris has always been the most popular stop of the Grand Tour due to its political, architectural, and cultural influence. People also preferred to spend most of their time in France because they spoke French, one of the most prominent languages.

After they left France, most tourists headed to Italy either through the Alps, or by boat on the Mediterranean Sea. Those who travelled by sea usually visited Venice and Rome.

What did people do during the Grand Tour?

Most tourists engaged in the same activities during the Grand Tour because art and culture were at the centre of the journey. When they arrived at one of the destinations on their list, they sought accommodation to settle for a couple of weeks or months.

Even if the main aim of the Grand Tour was educational, people also spend a lot of time in frivolous activities like gambling, drinking, and intimate encounters because their actions rarely had any consequences.

Visiting Italian and French royalty was an everyday activity for those who took part in the Grand Tour because they wanted to return home with connections and stories to tell about meeting influential and famous people.

Vacations nowadays look quite differently from how to pleasure travelling was in the 18th century.