Franklin loved travelling abroad, particularly trekking. She first "qualified" at Christmas 1929 for a vacation at Menton, France, where her grandfather went to escape the English winter. Her family frequently spent vacations in Wales or Cornwall. A trip to France in 1938 gave her a lasting love for France and its language. She considered the French lifestyle at that time as "vastly superior to that of English". In contrast, she described English people as having "vacant stupid faces and childlike complacency". Her family was almost stuck in Norway in 1939, as World War II was declared on their way home. In another instance, she trekked the French Alps with Jean Kerslake in 1946, which almost cost her her life. She slipped off a slope, and was barely rescued. But she wrote to her mother, "I am quite sure I could wander happily in France forever. I love the people, the country and the food."