What was your first "grown up" holiday?

A week after my 18th birthday I went away to Ibiza with 8 girls. It was quite a rite of passage I can tell you ?

My boyfriend and I drove to France and stayed in a tent site for two weeks when we just 18. Just the two of us, and we managed to drive all the way there and back, and camp, without any arguments.

He introduced me to red wine, brie and Robert Ludlum.

It was a fantastic holiday, repeated the next year by us driving to Spain for a fortnight.

I'd just turned 18 and flew out to Israel with my girlfriend to spend the summer working for the Israeli Antiquities Authority. We lived on kibbutz, worked on a dig, travelled into Jerusalem to go sightseeing, climbed Mesada at dawn and went floating in the dead sea. It all felt very grown-up.

Not exactly your average post A-level fling. ?

Mine was just after getting my A-Level results when I was 18. 6 of us went to Malia in Crete - absolutely mental week, and still one of the best ones of my life.

I just can't remember a time I've been more carefree (as well as careless, probably ?) so I do look back on it so fondly.

All much more exciting than a week at Bells Beach. ? We could only dream of going overseas. The really big schoolies adventure was to go to the Gold Coast in Queensland.

Post A level jaunt to the lake district in a youth hostal rental 12 of us (6 boys 6 girls) 1 couple, 1 ex couple (me and the ex), lots of hills, tears (mostly mine), tantrums, RAC assistance, wine and hot chocolate. It was great I think we survived of frozen pizza and cheese on toast and despite the ex we had a ball, it was the last time we were all together, once we went to uni the group broke up.

It was just after our A-level results, and we went and stayed on a campsite near Newquay. I discovered after we got there that it was pretty notorious for drinking/partying/snogging/shagging teens, and well, we pretty much made the most of it ?

Inter-railing with TWELVE friends after our A-Levels. It was a logistical nightmare. ?

Ahh, Sunnyside Camping, I remember it well. ?

Age 17, 5 friends and I (all girls) spent a week on a caravan site in the Isle of Wight. ? We survived on smash and cheese sauce, fish and chips, toast, crisps, fags, tea and a LOT of booze. The caravan park was a real old people's haunt and we certainly raised a lot of eyebrows. I remember we crashed bingo night and cheered every time the caller ( the park keeper's son who was about 18) called out 69 - making him blush. I won the big prize that night (£30 - a lot of money back then) and that kept us in booze and fags for most of the week.

The park keeper's son was very excited about us being there and him and his mates took us out most nights to some really cheesy crummy nightclubs.

Happy days.

Now that sounds more like what our week was like. ? No shagging though, we were good girls.

That'll be the one ?

I didn't actually sleep with anyone, though got mighty close. I think I was the only one out of our group who didn't. On of my friends had a threesome for her very first shag ?

My first 'grown up' holiday was when i was 19 ish and went to lovely playa de las americas for 2 weeks with 2 friends.

the apartment we stopped in was really grotty and slap bang in the middle of playa,right near an english pub called the red lion or something like that.it had a drag artiste on in the evening called crystal something.heaven forbid those who dared to go in there after her show had started as she would say some rather scathing comments to people.

from what i remember there was alot of booze involved, my mate had to move out of her bed so the other one could 'entertain' a young man. ended up not speaking to one of them by the end of the holiday but have made up since.

had many a weepy phonecall to my boyfriend at the time as he was rather aloof with me on the phone telling me what a great time he was having back at home without me.

the day we got back off holiday i drove round to give him his presents and drop him off to his mates house as they were going on an 18-30 holiday for 2 weeks.

he dumped me over the phone the day he got back..... young love...you can't beat it....

one of the defining memories for me was how much the beach smelt.

Do you know, I've never really been on a girly holiday - we just never had the cash. We did a lot of day trips instead.

My first holiday 'alone' was with my now-husband. We went for a week in Slovenia when I was 20. It was fabulous - stunning scenery, great food, horribly 80s hotel ?. We have very fond memories (even though they played Celine Dion every morning over breakfast ?).

I went to Turkey with my friend when i was in 6th form.. i met a guy.. i'm marrying said guy next year! x

Went to Corfu. I was very sick.

I joined the army when I was 17 and 3 months before I turned 18 I was posted to Germany. The first night there I got pissed and climbed through the window to get to my dorm, the next morning I was introduced to the OC and given a lecture about under-age drinking, I was hungover from hell and convinced every pore was oozing alcohol. I spent the next 5 years in Germany drunk and loving every minute. It was like one big holiday but getting paid for it at the same time. The only downside was the room inspections and PE.

My first 'real'; holiday was a fly-drive to American my then boyfriend and I flew to New York, spent 3 days looking at all the sights and then we picked up a hire car. We first drove to Niagra Falls and spent the night and then spent the next 7 days driving back down to New York through New England and staying in Motels, we even did a spot of Whale Watching in Cape Cod. It was an amazing holiday.

Snap! Well, me and a mate. I had a boyfriend so I didn't take full advantage of it though ? We had to phone home to get our A level results in between club crawls ?

My first trip sans parents was to China when I was 16, with 9 schoolfriends. It was organised through school but with paid guides, not teachers or parents. It was amazing and eye opening and incredibly exc iting.

At 17, I went to Germany for 6 weeks alone, on a work placement with a huge German company which were clients of my mum's. I ditched the job after 2 weeks and worked 3 shifts a week at the local irish bar in the town, kissed lots of Italian boys and drank lots of wine. Not as cultural as my parents had hoped, in the end...

I was just 19, and went to Bodrum with two friends. It was lovely - nothing like the tourist trap it is now. I remember that we had to fly to Izmir and have a six hour coach transfer to our hotel!

A meal for three with booze was £5! Cheapalicious!

I also remember that were a group of Dutch staying at our hotel. They kept bombing and splashing in the pool so much that they soaked everyone, and everything on people's balconies. They were asked to stop, but said no. On our last night, they were leaving for the airport a few hours after us. To pay them back, a group of us took all their clothes that they had left drying on their balconies and threw them in the pool. Ha.

Puerto Del Carmen, Lanzarote. I was about 16/17. Went with my sis and her friend. Her friend brought home a gorgeous guy from Fuerteventura, his friends were pretty lovely but unfortunately I was quite hideous so didn't pull [baw]

Ended up spending most of my time with my sister, which isn't that good because she's almost as boring as I am and it was windy.

First and only time I've stayed in a club so late that as I was walking back to the apartment the sun was coming up and the shop keepers were opening up, that's even since going to Ayia Napa. How sad is that? I'm not a party animal.

Torquay, 1992. I went with two friends, we were 16.

I'm not at liberty to divulge any further information. ?

The first holiday I took with out my parents or adult supervision was when I was 18. I went to New Zealand for 6 weeks to see a bloke I fancied. I came back after those 6 weeks, worked for 4 months and then went back for 2 years - this time completely alone.

I did move out from home at 16 though - I went to a residential college- so it wasn't such a big deal some how.

I'm so jealous your holidays all sound great!

Mine wasn't until I was 22. I went to blackpool with my bestfriend. We hitched a ride with the local working men's club annual outing (different hotel though). They had bingo on the bus and everything...

Rock 'n' Roll ?

My friend and I went to Tenerife for a fortnight the summer we were 18, just before starting Uni. We weren't wild, in fact I don't think we did much drinking other than the odd peach schnapps and lemonade ? I do remember a middle-aged couple in the next apartment (who had brought their own bacon, sausages etc frozen from home) saying we were brave coming abroad at our age, and thinking "are we?".

I was very skinny back then ?

Hmm not sure if this counts as grown up but I went to Long Island, NY at the tender age of 16 all by myself. I was visiting a penpal and had a great time.

However my first holiday with friends I was 20. We went to Gran Canaria, it was my best mate, my brother, a guy my mate and I knew from college, his brother and his brother's friend. I will always have fond memories & pictures of that holiday ?

I was just 16, and went to Bournemouth with 3 of my friends. I had to join them 2 days into the holiday as I'd been hospitalised with tonsilitus. Not too sure the Drs would have approved of my convalescence!

We stayed in a guest house, lived on crisps, cider and marlboro lights. I think our mums rang the landlady to ask if she could keep an eye on us. She used to smack our bottoms if we got in too late (early) or if boys were discovered loitering outside with us ? She's buy us booze too, if the shopkeepers refused to serve us.

I went to China all on my ownio to teach english at 18, which was cool. Followed it by solo backpacking through China, Laos and Thailand after. Lucky duck.

Before that, I had done a lot of summer camps, a cross community thing sans parents to america, and the tefl training for the teaching.

It was unbelievable, and undoubtedly defines me today, naff as that sounds.

I went to a holiday camp with my friends parents when I was 14, we had our own cabin next door to them. We sneaked some boys in who were there, they told us that they were 18 and we said that we were 16. At the end of the holiday we found out they were 24. Thank God we didn't shag them.

I 'think' we had a long weekend away in Llandudno but I can't be sure whether that was before or after our first proper holiday. I went to Salou in Spain with my then boyfriend when we finished our A levels. It was a really lovely holiday.

I can't remember if I was 15 or 16, but went on holiday with boyriend to Paignton for a week. Spent all out money on arcade games and had to get my dad to fetch us home as we couldn't afford the coach ?

L
xx

I was 17 and went to Bournemouth with 3 of my friends! God only knows why Bournemouth - although I do remember Snoopy's disco on the pier, J getting off with one of the bar men and going off with him, and L being so worried watching where she was going that she pranged her Mum's car that we'd all travelled down in (she'd only passed her test the week before). J had done my make-up so I was resplendent in bright blue eye shadow with blue mascara, and bright pink lipstick - I looked like an Abba reject!

We were in a first floor flat, but it was a few days before we realised that the double decker bus stopped right outside our house and could see straight in to us lounging around in flimsy nighties

We also went to two of the Radio 1 roadshows and made a banner for the second one (on Sandbanks) out of a plastic table cloth and coloured insulation tape which we had read out - I made my Mum suffer the whole show so she could tell me she'd heard it

Happy days!