Long Haul Holidays
Holidays
A holiday can refer to a specific trip or journey for the purposes of recreation or tourism. Holidays are often spent with friends or family.
A person may take a longer break from work, such as a sabbatical, gap year, or career break.
Tourism
Leisure travel was associated with the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom - the first European country to promote leisure time to the increasing industrial population. Initially, this applied to the owners of the machinery of production, the economic oligarchy, the factory owners and the traders. These comprised the new middle class. Cox & Kings was the first official travel company to be formed in 1758.
The British origin of this new industry is reflected in many place names. In Nice, France, one of the first and best-established holiday resorts on the French Riviera, the long esplanade along the seafront is known to this day as the Promenade des Anglais; in many other historic resorts in continental Europe, old, well-established palace hotels have names like the Hotel Bristol, the Hotel Carlton or the Hotel Majestic - reflecting the dominance of English customers.
Many leisure-oriented tourists travel to the tropics, both in the summer and winter. Places of such nature often visited are: Bali in Indonesia, Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Malaysia, the various Polynesian tropical islands, Queensland in Australia, Thailand, and Florida and Hawaii in the United States.
Long-Haul Flights
Long-haul flights are journeys typically made by wide-body aircraft that involve long distances, typically beyond six and a half hours in length, and often are non-stop flights. On some long-haul flights, jet airliners refuel in order to reach the destination.
A flight will typically take a direct route to minimise flight length. For long-haul flights, the most direct route is a great circle around the curvature of the earth. For example, aircraft travelling west between continents in the northern hemisphere will often follow paths extending northward near or into the arctic region. The resulting route, when shown on a projected map of the world, will appear curved (despite being a direct route). The great-circle distance between airports may therefore give an approximation of flight length.
However, a flight route will also take into account weather conditions, and air currents. A transcontinental flight in an Easterly direction will often take a more southerly route to take advantage of the jet stream.