ABSTRACT
One of the most important motives for travel to Europe was health, although this was less true for the younger age group. The idea of travelling for health became well-established in eighteenth-century Britain as large numbers travelled to the developing spas such as Bath, Buxton, Scarborough and Tunbridge Wells. To travel abroad for health represented a fusion of two of the more important developments in upper-class activities in this period: tourism and travelling for health. It did not need to involve much time, for the leading continental watering place visited by British tourists, Spa, was a relatively easy journey from London. Those who travelled for health did not share the same itinerary as those on the classical Grand Tour. Italy (apart from the Bay of Naples), Paris, Vienna and the United Provinces were replaced by watering places, principally Spa and Aachen, by Portugal and Montpellier and later by the Provençal coast and Nice. Travel for health was restricted to Europe, though John Macdonald, who visited St Helena in 1773, praised its virtues: ‘St Helena is a wholesome, pleasant place, and a fine keen searching air. If noblemen and gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland would go to Madeira and St Helena for their health, instead of going to France and Portugal, they would be sure to reestablish their health.’2
