How to holiday on the cheap this summer

2nd June 2008

The economy's imploding, we can't afford our mortgages and George Soros and Mervyn King agree we're all (to use a technical financial term) stuffed. But will this make us all stay at home like poor church mice? Will it hell! We want that break, we deserve that break and we're damn well going to have it. It's just going to have to be cheap. Really, really cheap.

Try one of these...

HOME SWAPS

Why stay in an expensive hotel when you could be in a real home for (almost) nothing? The world's largest home-swap agency is HomeLink (www.homelink.org), with more than 13,000 properties to choose from. It charges a fee of £115 for a year's website listing and brochure entry: once you've paid up, you can contact other owners direct and make the arrangements.

What you can get obviously depends on the home you have to offer - but it's location, not size, that counts. A one-bedroom flat in central London was recently exchanged for a four-bedroom beachfront mansion in Vancouver.

Popular destinations for Brits include France (plenty in Paris), Spain, Italy and Australia, but the agency now has homes as far afield as Japan, Oman and even Vietnam. There are some tempting places: 124 in Tuscany, for instance, many specifically requesting swaps with British owners, including restored palazzo apartments in Florence and classic farmhouses deep in the Sienese countryside.

Home Base Holidays (www.homebase-hols.com) works on the same lines. It's cheaper, at £29 for a year, and has 1,700 properties on its books.

If you like the States, consider California-based outfit HomeExchange.com: it charges £50 and features more than 20,000 properties, half of them in America.

CAMPING

The best camping - and the cheapest - isn't in some rule-ridden holiday park, the canvas equivalent of Butlins. It's in a farmer's field, with a water tap, a shower block, gorgeous scenery and not much else.

The weather's the thing. In the sunshine, camping is heaven, especially for kids. In the cold and rain, it's... not. So, the first tip is: be as flexible as you can. Many seasoned campers don't prebook, but simply wait until the forecast looks good and then take off.

For first-timers, the biggest expense is the kit. If you can't borrow a tent, Millets (www.millets.co.uk) currently has a cracking deal on a High Point starter pack - four-person tent, sleeping bags (a double and two singles), two roll mats and a double air bed, all for £90. A stove costs from £13; other essentials include a torch, rugs, a mallet and a pot, pan and plate or two. Take your divan and pillows too... makes a world of difference.

So, where to go? Two of our favourites are in Devon and Yorkshire. Cloud Farm (www.doonevalleyholidays.co.uk) on Exmoor is a treat: the camping is in a delightful spot - three riverside fields in a little valley. No booking, you just turn up; no formal pitches, you go where you like, and campfires are allowed. Lots of space, too - they've only had to turn away people once in five years. Per night, it's £7.50 for adults, £5.50 for 5-12s, under5s free.

Overlooking superb Robin Hood's Bay, Hooks House Farm (www.hookshousefarm.co.uk) has panoramic views, excellent walking and atmospheric Whitby nearby. It takes bookings for a week or more (still plenty of room in the school hols) or just roll up for shorter breaks; August weekends can get busy. Small and family-run, it's even cheaper: adults £4 per night, children £2.

COTTAGES

Going self-catering in the UK ought to be one of the cheapest holidays around, but all too often it doesn't end up like that. Look on the posh agency websites and you'll have trouble finding an August week at a decent three-bedroom place in Cornwall for less than £1,500 - if you can find one at all.

That's with an agency, which charges the cottage owners anything up to 25% commission on every booking taken, forcing them to keep rates high to make a return. As a rule, cutting out the middleman will get you a much cheaper deal.

So go to an advertising site, where independent owners pay a small flat fee. Both www.cottagesdirect.com and www.independentcottages.co.uk list hundreds of properties nationwide and include the owners' websites and phone numbers, so you can book direct.

There are some top deals to be had, too, even in the school summer holidays. In Devon, Cottages Direct has Pipkin, a three-bedroom cottage (sleeps five) in the cute, restored hamlet of Old Bridwell. It costs just £610 for the week from August 16.

Sites like these don't inspect the properties, so you're taking the owner's word on what it's like - but, even so, problems are rare. "I've worked with tour operators and agencies for 25 years, and the volume of complaints for booking direct is much lower," says Peter Hunt of Cottages Direct.

If you need the reassurance of knowing your property has been inspected, it's worth looking at the tourist-board websites: www.enjoyengland.com, www.visitscotland.com and www.visitwales.co.uk. All of these have listings of the thousands of cottages that have been seen and graded according to their own local schemes.

Holiday in Your Pocket also has a growing number of cottages to rent.

VILLAS ON THE MED

Just as with cottages, you can save by skipping the agencies and going direct. A number of sites carry ads from villa owners - many of them British expats or UK residents letting out their holiday homes. One of the best is www.holidaylets.net, which has nearly 11,000 properties worldwide, including 1,600 in France alone.

It has a good crop of (commission-free) bargains. From July 19 - just as the school hols start - the Old French Bakery in Plaigne, deep in the Languedoc countryside, is still available; it has a view across fields of sunflowers, and plenty of character - the old oven is still there. It sleeps six and costs only £440 for the week. Combine that with a cheap Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) flight to Béziers - they're currently about £80 return - and your week in the sun is about £153 each.

Other good villa advertising sites to try include www.cheznous.com, www.ownersdirect.co.uk and www.clickstay.com. Plus of course www.holidayinyourpocket.com!

 

 

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