While family holidays, and those as a couple, are all well and good, there are times when men just want to get away and be, well, men. These are the kind of holidays where men join other men and learn new skills or hone the ones they have. Before you raise an incredulous eyebrow as you only thought these trips belonged on the big screen think again.
- Holidays for Mensharkbait / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA
These types of breaks are becoming more and more popular, and many men prefer to learn new things with other men rather than their family. Columbus Direct offers five suggestions for those who are seeking to broaden their horizons and learn at the same time, and as most of them have courses for absolute beginners as well those with experience, you know you will be learning at the right level.
Dude ranch
How many of you out there have City Slickers in your DVD collection? Ever since the classic film was released men have wanted to be modern cowboys. It’s been a big thing in the US for decades, but this film appealed to so many Brits that business is still booming with ranches welcoming large numbers of men from the UK. Holidaying on a working ranch and learning to be a cowboy is a dream come true for every little boy who ran around the garden playing cowboys and Indians. Take part in a cattle drive, learn how to lasso a cow and learn how to yell “Yeehaa” like a real cowboy. There are many companies offering these kinds of holidays so shop around online to find yourself a great deal.
Cookery
Men love to cook, the amount of male contestants on such programmes as Masterchef and Great British Bake Off proves this. Cookery holidays have been around for many a year but there is more choice of courses exclusively for men than ever before. These used to just last for an afternoon or a full day if you were lucky, but now you can take yourself off for several days and come back with a whole new repertoire of dishes and a gravy boatload of confidence. They don’t promise to turn you into the next James Martin or Jamie Oliver, but these courses will improve your skills or take complete beginners and make them competent cooks.
Foreign language
Even those who struggled with the basic at school have found as adults they can master a foreign language. There is much to be said for learning a second, or even third language and it has further reaching benefits than you may think. Firstly if you learn the lingo spoken in your favourite holiday spot then your experience of the country will be much more enriching. You can go the resorts the local’s holiday in and be able to avoid those catering for Brits. Language holidays abroad allows you to learn Spanish in Spain, French in France etc, and beats an evening class in a local school hands down for both speed of learning and valuable pronunciation.
Photography
Even though with today’s modern digital cameras nobody should ever cut a head off, photography is still an art form. Knowing how natural light can effect the final result or finding the best angle to draw the eye into the image is something that rarely comes naturally. Combining a holiday with a photography course is the perfect break for those frustrated snappers who are decent photographers but want to be good. You can take these holidays both in the UK and overseas, and it all depends on what you want to learn and what you want to snap that will determine which is the best one for you.
Flying
It’s a fact that anyone can learn to fly. Now we aren’t talking airliners or helicopters here, that would take more than a holiday, but anything that takes you up in the air that you are in control of is classed as flying. Learning to fly a glider is about the easiest to get to grips with, and as there is little technical know how to grasp these holidays are becoming increasingly popular. One of the best establishments of this kind is in Scotland near Kinross, and you can enjoy a week long residential course here. There isn’t a feeling in the world like taking the controls of a glider and soaring over the countryside like a bird, and once you have experienced this for yourself you will want to feel this freedom time and time again.
These are just a small selection of practical holidays which men can take on. It is hard to find a skill that there isn’t a holiday for these days and it is entirely up to you where you want to go to learn or improve these skills. These trips are exclusive to men of course but have been chosen as there are more men than women make the effort to go on them by themselves.
They also have the choice of being in an exclusively male group or mixed, so if you want to go along and just hang out with other guys for a while you won’t get there to discover you are the only one amongst a dozen women. Have a browse online to see what is on offer for the particular practical skill you are most interested in, as you are practically guaranteed to find it without too much time or effort.
