Most of us remember our first holiday abroad, when we had the excitement of travelling through the air or over the sea to a brand new country that had food we'd never tried and sights we'd never seen. For some they will have been small children where their days were filled with ice cream, playing in the pool and going to kids' club (which, in hindsight, was just as much about giving the parents a breather). For others they may have been teenagers with more awareness of their surroundings, a greater desire for independence and perhaps moments that defined their adolescence. 

Here, a selection of Telegraph writers share their cherished memories of that first foray to a new land...  

‘I loved being a thousand miles from home’

Richard Madeley

I first flew abroad when I was 17. It was to the Greek island of Zante and my accommodation – a sort of single-storey ground floor bed sit – was the worst I have ever stayed in. The roof leaked copiously during thunderstorms, directly into my bed (twice when I was sleeping on it); the “kitchenette” was a tiny sink with one cold tap, which emitted a feeble dribble before clanking dry; the kitchen equipment was a handleless saucepan, one teaspoon, one fork and a tin plate.

I couldn’t have given a solitary stuff. I loved it. I loved being a thousand miles from home. I loved the intensity of the sun, the aquamarine sea, the dreadful beach café food and the fact I couldn’t speak a word of Greek and the locals had absolutely no English. I was abroad – with no responsibilities; no expectations. I was in paradise.

‘Spain had always held a kind of romantic allure’

Mick Brown

I was 15. There is a photograph of me, descending the steps from the aircraft at Majorca airport – not because I was a celebrity. Foreign holidays were sufficient a novelty that photographers would stand on the tarmac, taking pictures of disembarking passengers that you could buy as a souvenir. I can still feel the sensation of being enveloped in a different kind of heat, dry and mixed with the intoxicating scent of aviation fuel.

Spain had always held a kind of romantic allure. My grandparents had visited a few years before, tourist pioneers, returning with gifts: a concertina postcard of a bullfight, a doll dressed in Spanish dress which my mother placed on her bedspread, a pair of castanets that I could never master. Now we were here. 

We were staying in a resort hotel called the Tropicana. It had its own beach. The guests were Dutch, German, French – a paella of different languages. In the evening there was flamenco dancing and a waiter would pour sangria down people’s throats from a bottle with a long spout, promoting gales of increasingly inebriated laughter. One evening an older girl, who had been smiling at me from across the terrace, took my hand and led me down to the beach. Being abroad – it was freedom!

‘Holidays in Suffolk never had quite the same appeal after that’

Camilla Tominey

Having endured a series of cold and wet summer holidays in Southwold, my first foreign jaunt to Greece, when I was around seven, could not have felt more adventurous.

It was the mid-Eighties and back then flying seemed to be such a kerfuffle. I remember seeing my mum carrying all of our passports stuffed with huge cardboard tickets and worrying that we would get to the gate only to discover that mine was missing.

From the glamour of the air hostesses’ uniforms, to my first Coca-Cola at 10,000 feet, the on-board experience was as magical as seeing swimming pools below us as we came into land at Athens, before taking a ferry on to the island of Spetses.

I will never forget that first feeling of walking off the plane and the heat instantly hitting my face. Suffice to say, holidays in Suffolk never had quite the same appeal after that.

‘I can still remember the trio of peaks out the hotel room window’

Chris Mason

The clunk and clank of the narrow gauge railway climb; the summer alpine views meet the never-heard-by-me-before German sounds. That drive in the dark from the Yorkshire Dales to Manchester Airport a few hours ago feels a few weeks ago already. The Swiss Air jet so much smoother than my only previous airborne adventure – on a flying wasp of a turbo prop to Guernsey a couple of years earlier. 

I’m 11, it’s 1991, and I am about to embark on my first foreign holiday. We are heading for Wengen in the Bernese Oberland region of Switzerland. I can still remember the trio of peaks out the hotel room window – the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. I remember too my mum and dad saying coming here now had two big pluses: half the price of the winter, and we don’t have to break our ankles on skis. 

The dangling sensation of a cable car. The joyous sound of cow bells. And the sheer intimidation of the hotel restaurant with everyone dressed up and my little brother James, 8, and I, under strict instructions to eat everything placed in front of us. Oh and one more thing I’ll never forget. A fish. With its head still on.

‘Summers were a reliably cheap and (mostly) cheerful pursuit’

Charlotte Lytton

Until my last family holiday aged around 15, each year followed a well-tested formula: budget flight (always with our own foil-wrapped sarnies – the cucumber never travelled well) to the Costa del Sol, where we’d lie by a pool for two weeks. Seeing the world always ranked second to seeing sunshine – the true mark of a holiday, it had been decided. And so we’d edge, year after year, from one bit of the Spanish south to another. 

Dad’s holiday home bargain-searching made for quite the range in places we ended up – among them two where my sister cried on entry – but summers were for us a reliably cheap and (mostly) cheerful pursuit, even if the easyJet boarding gates and wanders through duty free and terracotta apartment blocks sort of merged into one, after a while. Ours were never the trips of travel magazine covers, but they always did the job.

‘We’d never seen a bidet before, and it all felt very sophisticated and foreign’

Helen Lederer

Not only were we the first people in Eltham to try croissants but we seem to have embraced air travel before it took off, as it were.

In the very late Fifties (I was a baby) we actually put our car inside an aeroplane to fly from Lydd Airport in Kent to Brittany in France. We stayed in a hotel on the beach, where the parents would rest after a formal lunch in the dining room and my sister and I did exciting things with the bidets in our room. We’d never seen a bidet before, and it all felt very sophisticated and foreign.

The next time, we left the car at home to fly from Gatwick to Pisa before taking a coach and ferry to the island of Elba. The excitement was massive. Apart from the arguments as to who would get the window seat, we loved every second of being airborne. We even got given extra bread rolls if we wanted them, and free sweets for landing.

As children we were told never to speak when we went through customs. I never knew why, but I used to smile at the uniformed officials to help avert suspicion if needs be. It all felt very thrilling. 

As a single parent I knew I had to introduce my daughter to flying early. In no time at all, she was doing up her own seat belt and getting out her puzzles before I’d ordered my gin and tonic.  We went on a “Club Med” package holiday to Tunisia where everyone was from Wandsworth and reading the same Joanna Trollope book around the pool. But the night we spent in the desert in a Bedouin tent was magical… No matter that a few hours later we were back in Luton. It’s the travelling that counts.   

‘I found myself alone in Greece – but it turned into the best holiday ever ’

Jude Kelly

I was 19 when I took my first ever flight. The six weeks set aside for adventuring in Greece before my second university year had only the haziest plan. Meet up with my best friend at Plaka and then stay with another friend at some rented flat nearby. Then see what happens. 

I’ll never forget flying over the clouds, the sun behind, and the future beckoning. The flight was a metaphor for all my hopes, ambitions and excitement. 

The holiday was a near disaster. We were unable to stay with our friend who’d apparently invited all of Liverpool. He was overrun, harassed and unwelcoming. We stayed in a hostel, fended off endless sexual propositions and then jumped on a boat to Symi, where we slept on the beach to save money. Three days later Amanda flew home with a giant abscess on her tooth. I was alone in Greece with five weeks to go before my return flight. I cried buckets. 

A group of French students adopted me and I fell in love with all of them, with every island we visited and with every family who fed us. I had the best holiday ever – and that’s why I’m boarding a flight to Greece next week.

‘In an effort to be cool, I wore a vintage sequinned jacket and cowboy boots for the flight’

Jan Etherington

Surprisingly, as the daughter of an RAF Bomber Command pilot, it took me a long time to get my “wings”.

With four daughters, family holidays abroad were too expensive, so my dad’s idea of a treat was to take us to the Queen’s Building at Heathrow to watch the planes

My first foreign holiday was an interminable coach and ferry school trip to Paris when I was 14. It was there that my white-sliced childhood ended forever, once I’d tasted hot, crusty bread for breakfast. 

I decided I liked abroad but, unlike many of my friends, I didn’t board a cheapo flight to Greece after A-levels. I got married – and for the next decade, holidays were a carload of children heading for a campsite in the South of France.

But in the mid-Seventies, as a young music journalist, I was invited on press trip to New York to interview singer Peter Frampton. I flew BA Business Class.

I thought this was how everybody travelled and, in an effort to be cool, I wore a vintage sequinned jacket and cowboy boots for the flight. Not comfy. 

Later, I flew Concorde to New York and I realised I am not a cheap flights girl. I was born to turn left on boarding. If only I could afford it.

What do you remember the most from your first time going abroad? Let us know in the comments