My mother never went abroad as they were countries full of foreigners.
My dad only did once, with work, to a conference in America, otherwise he wouldn't have done either. They both extensively toured around different parts of the UK when they were young, but never had any interest in going anywhere else. To their generation, why would you want to, England was the centre of the world, the leading economic power with its empire until WWII, then it all went to the dogs was their mindset.
I think you would be surprised at the number of people that live in the same area for all of their lives. A neighbour who died a few years ago, inherited his victorian house when his mother died, and told everybody he was born there. So it was his home for all of his life. Still in different towns and villages in the UK you get clusters
of inbreds with the same surnames.
Until the advent of the railways in the 1840's, unless you were in the army or navy, you may have never travelled outside of your town or village. This especially applied to women, where they they typically had 6 to 12 children to bring up.
Wars and military service was the most likely reason for men to do so before the 1840's unless you were a merchant or like Lord Opti part of the landed gentry, when prep school, university and a European tour was considered essential education.
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Topic: Catchline of the week (Read 1330 times)