How have you saved money while holidaying in rural England?

hugheskevi

I find the only way to have holidays in UK at a competitive cost is to have my own car, camp, and cook most food ourselves (Calor Gas).

Many attractions have 2 for 1 entry if arriving by rail - often buying rail tickets from closest station and not using them results in cheaper entry.

Researching tourist attractions in advance and purchasing online, taking advantage of any offers, usually saves a bit.

Staying with friends around the country for a night or two works very well, giving access to electricity to charge things, a free bed, and a good chance to catch-up.

Volunteerting, eg with RSPB, can be excellent, and also give access to free accommodation.

What, if any, changes are needed to give people better access to the coast and countryside?

Bus services are a joke - I used to try to use local bus services, but gave up after an occasion when after purchasing return tickets on a route found that the return portion was useless as it was only valid on one of the companies operating on that route, and they only ran to 5pm. Now I completely ignore buses, too much trouble compared to car.

Similarly, rail service are too expensive. A few years ago it was cheaper for me to hire and fuel a car to drive from London to the South West than it would have been to get rail tickets for 2 people.

Parking, particularly in Lake District, is excessively expensive when the only option is to pay to park all day when the attraction is the sort of thing you would only visit for an hour or two.

Accommodation is a major barrier, especially at week-ends. Camping is competitive, but there can be very limited budget options at weekends in some areas. Paying £50+ per night makes any holiday of long duration expensive.

What measures are needed to ensure transport, housing and other infrastructure meets visitor needs?

Much more integrated bus services which can be easily researched.

Cheaper accommodation and rail travel.

How can policies get the right balance between growing tourism and enhancing the local environment and character?

At the moment I think there is very limited access if you do not have a car. Consideration should be given as to whether this is okay, and base development around a car-centred approach, or whether this is not desirable and public transport should be operated for rural areas developed around tourist needs specifically, even if it is loss-making. There are already some excellent examples of this (eg bus service around Hadrian's Wall at Housesteads), but not many.

kboss2010

Holidays in the English countryside are horrendously expensive. My mum lives in Devon and 5 days cost two of us £700 just for flights and accommodation. The train would have cost even more from N. Scotland. Then we spent about £50 a day on food and fuel + extras for entrance fees etc. It would have been hundreds more if my mum hadn't allowed us the use of her car for the week (I think renting one was about the same as our accommodation when I looked into it). We got a 5 day holiday in Malta for that last Sept. and the weather, food and public transport were all much better!

The b&b we stayed in for our last night was shabby and old-fashioned and at £60 for the night for a room with a shared bathroom, it wasn't exactly cheap.

A few years ago it cost me £150 more to fly to Toronto and stay for 5 days to go to a gig than travel to London from Aberdeen, stay overnight and return home the next day. It's kind of a no-brainer which to choose.

Holidaying in the UK is expensive, quite often disappointing and not good value for money. Attractions are overpriced, eating out adds up quickly and the weather is often rubbish which rules out many free activities.

fiendishly

You can't just say there should be 'cheaper accommodation' the market will charge what people will pay, that's why there is a range of options from tent to luxury hotel. This is about saving money.


I recently went to the Yorkshire Dales. I like to eat out every night on holiday and I arranged a couple of Groupon vouchers for restaurants in the area. As I was eating out anyway this saves a few quid. Also Tesco deals vouchers for days out and restaurants are always worth a look if you are planning a holiday.

kboss2010

I agree about competition but even camping in a lot of places is unaffordable for families. Prime camping spots can be the same price as a budget hotel room! Obviously prices may vary across the country but, for me, city breaks are much better value for money. Our hotel room the weekend before we went to Devon (in London) we got a basic private room in a hostel for £35 a night, 2 minutes walk from Dollis Hill tube station. The cheapest accommodation in Devon we could find for the equivalent b&b was £55-60 a night.

Airbnb we found was the best value for rural accommodation. For me, standard b&bs have had their day, they need to modernise and keep up with the times. An en-suite bathroom should be an essential not an optional extra. It's 2016.

That said, I do enjoy watching The Hotel Inspector though for the sheer comedy of what some owners call "acceptable". I've stayed in youth hostels that have higher standards than some b&bs.

timboduk

We regularly take our main holiday in rural UK locations. While some areas are not blessed with great public transport, areas such as Snowdonia have great transport links. If you are reliant on public transport or if you are planning to do some walking I recommend you check the transport situation before you book.

Thanks to deregulation of the buses it's not always easy to find all the info you need in one place, but I find that the Local Council website is often a good place to start for bus timetables.

I also recommend searching on Google Maps or Bing Maps for restaurants or pubs near your chosen accommodation. If you have to go a long way to eat every evening then you probably won't want to be relying on public transport. If you are going to a have to eat in the place where you are staying, then check the menu (and prices) before you book. A cheap hotel isn't so cheap if you end up having to pay through the nose for your meals!

One thing that has surprised us over the years is the enormous disparity between levels of customer service delivered in some rural hotels. For example, the Hotel we stayed at in Northumberland last year, despite calling itself a hotel and charging 'hotel prices' thought it was ok to just top up the tea and coffee each day (no cleaning, no replacing of towels, no making of beds, etc). We complained but were made to feel as though we were making unreasonable demands!

Many country hotels are just pubs with a few upstairs rooms and the hotel guests can sometimes be treated as an afterthought. Other managers put a great deal of effort into the Hotel side of the Business (Step forward Paul Hurst, who runs two fantastic country hotels in Lancashire!). Once again, I recommend doing your research and checking reviews before booking. When it comes to reviews, don't just look at the score given; read the comments. There are a lot of very strange people out there who moan about very odd things, which may be very important for them but won't bother you a single bit.

RogerTorquay

Ok, cards on the table. I'm a small hotelier running a West Country B&B. But there is one key thing that would help everyone, and bring down the prices of UK stays ... join the campaign to cut Tourism VAT.
Some background - Vat on UK holidays is set at 20% (the Standard rate), however the EU has a special rule for Tourism that allows a lower rate to be charged, but the UK is one of only 3 EU members not to take advantage of this. This automatically adds 20% to the cost of UK stay - when the Government have the power already to cut that to around 5%.
Why the special rules? Well, VAT is supposed to be a generally neutral Tax for businesses, so business can claim VAT back on their purchases so the VAT they actually pay is pretty much just paid on the profit margin. However, tourism is one of those business types where this just doesn't work, virtually nothing we buy is vatable, and everything we sell is vatable. For us its our single largest bill, for guests it's an extra (and unnecessary) 15% extra on their bill. And the government already has a simple way to right this - something that virtually every other EU country already does. So if you want to feedback something to help cut the cost of UK stays, tell them to cut Tourism VAT.

naked

Broadly speaking, the problems I have when trying to holiday in the countryside are cost and accessibility without a car like others have said.

Camping can also be extremely expensive. Once the cheapest place we could find in the area we wanted to stay was £25 a night for a 1 man tent (tent and electricity not included).

Kyrae

My husband and I usually go on holiday to Scotland twice a year, we rarely go overseas. Accommodation can be pricey but we stay in self-catering places and buy groceries at supermarkets and local farm shops and make our own meals, and we tend to go on walks, wildlife watch, etc so we don't spend a lot apart from accommodation and petrol. Unless I find a chocolate shop or local craft shop, and the occasional whiskey!


I prefer Scotland over England for holidays as it's quieter, less traffic on the roads, lots of wildlife and forests, beautiful beaches, etc. There's a lot of unspoilt countryside and wildlife in Scotland and they advertise it well. I like holidaying in England too, the Lake District, Westcountry, etc but I find I have to do a lot of my own research to find quiet beautiful places with good walks and wildlife, those sort of places don't seem to get as much tourism advertising as city breaks and family tourist attractions do, I look for holiday recommendations on wildlife and walking forums etc instead.

That said, we went on holiday to Exmoor this summer and we had a great time. Though we were shocked at how expensive parking was, eg £3 to park at Tarr Steps, or £3 to park 3 hours in Watchet car park. And a lot of the toilets cost 20p to use! Not a great way to encourage tourists to come and spend money in the shops and tourist attractions, put us off stopping for a drink or short wander around the shops. Also, the roads were just so busy, took us 7 hours to drive home! A long stressful drive but trains are just too expensive, and there's never enough room for holiday luggage on them in the summer months. Buses are confusing too, wanted a day ticket that would let me travel around unlimited for a day and the bus office advised me to get a completely different ticket to the bus driver, and I'd already tried looking on the bus companies website the day before and couldn't find clear ticket there information! No wonder we tend to drive everywhere, did have a great day trip on the steam train from Minehead though


Definitely have to do a lot of research into holiday accommodation too, there's some horrendous places out there! Stayed one week in a holiday cottage with a family of mice living in the sofa, the smell was not too pleasant, but it did help mask the smell of the damp in the walls!


To get the balance right between growing tourism and the local environment I think you need to support and encourage the sort of businesses that tourists like and encourage the businesses unique to that area, like coffee shops, local food producers, seaside ice cream and chip shops, farm shops, craft shops, etc. I think they add to the character of the place and encourage tourists to spend their money on small local businesses rather than the big chain shops. Keep the towns pretty too, good flower displays, lots of benches to sit on, bins that are regularly emptied, well maintained historical buildings, etc.


I love leaflets too, nothing better than visiting a new village or town and picking up a nice little leaflet with a simple map with places of interest marked on, a bit of local history, recommended walks, and some adverts for local businesses to cover printing costs. Finding these leaflets in my holiday accommodation always encourages me to visit them, and when I find a good leaflet I leave it in the cottage for the next visitor too!

Mrs_Ryan

OH and I went to Somerset a couple of weeks ago. We stayed with a chain of holiday parks as we usually do- we get good offers as we stay every year.
The holiday itself cost OH £250, then food, petrol, etc- all adds up. We did trips to Bath and Bristol although utilised park and ride- I have a National Concessionary Disabled Person's bus pass so it only cost a few pounds (OH's fare) to park all day. However we did do a couple of 'tourist' things- we went to the Cheddar Gorge and were shocked to find it was £20 each plus £5 to park but OH went free when I showed proof of PIP. We also went on a bus tour of Bath, which even with my NUS card still cost over £30. These places know how to milk the tourists! For example at the Cheddar Gorge the caves and things were not accessible to me but I had to pay the £20 when OH took advantage of everything and got in for free

kboss2010

I agree that Scotland is much better value for money. I live in Scotland (having moved here from England years ago) and, with the exception of London (surprisingly!), trips to Edinburgh/Lothians and the West Coast are not too expensive compared with rural England. Plenty of beaches, forests and hills to walk.