Travellers' Checks | Donkey rides: think twice before taking one – animal abuse for our pleasure doesn’t end at elephants

The humble donkey has been a part of the British seaside holiday tradition since the 18th century, or so I have read. One of my earliest travel memories is of riding one in Weston-super-Mare, a town in Somerset, southern England, in the late 1960s; plodding around the infamous mudflats as my feet struggled in vain to relocate the stirrups, knuckles a-whitening with every sudden lurch forward.

A donkey ride along the beach was a holiday rite of passage, just like braving the Ghost Train and Crazy House on the Grand Pier. In sunnier climes, at around the same time, donkeys were braying under the weight of grown-up British tourists, as cheap package holidays opened up Spain, Greece and Portugal to the masses. Tacky postcards showing donkeys wearing sombreros were – and still are – sent home, and even tackier straw donkeys were proudly carried back as gifts and souvenirs.

Not much has changed since then – straw donkeys still feature on worst-souvenir polls – but the tourists have become fatter and more numerous. The Greek island of Santorini has been in the news recently, with widespread reports of the cruel treat­ment of donkeys and their crippling job of ferrying fat and lazy cruise passengers from the harbour high up to the capital, Fira.

Are you contributing to animal abuse? Attractions to avoid on your next holiday