You have made the decision to spend your hard-earned cash on a family holiday but is it better to take advantage of the great family deals on offer if you book online, or is it wiser to pay a visit to your local travel agent and discuss your requirements face to face with a travel adviser.

Searching for a holiday and then booking online has many advantages. You do not feel pressurised into making a decision immediately, but can take your time, looking at traveller reviews and browsing different websites for the best deal. Some sites offer flash sales where for a limited time holiday prices are slashed often resulting in great savings on the cost of your holiday.

However, you may find that you cannot easily create a bespoke holiday online especially if your family has particular needs i.e. if someone in your party has limited mobility. This is when the advice and expertise of a travel agent can help. These advisers are trained to offer you the best possible holiday for your budget and often have personal experience of the locations on offer. Although the cost of your holiday may not be as cheap, the value for money will definitely be better.

We all love to go on holiday and if you have children or are a teacher you may well be restricted to school holidays. Holidays are expensive whatever the time of year, but if you do have to go in school holidays then you can expect to pay a lot more.

I recently started looking in to the price of caravan holidays in Newquay during the summer holidays. I was shocked to find that many of them were in excess of £1200 for one week. This seemed like a rather large amount of money for a holiday where you cannot guarantee the weather being nice. A Haven caravan was often £1700 plus for a week making it well out of our price range. The best way to find a bargain caravan holiday this time of the year is to try and book direct with the owner. If you do this you can usually save a large amount of then rental fee and may find that they are more flexible on the times you can get in and leave etc.

 

If you are looking to go on holiday in the UK then you have a few options when it comes to accommodation. You can stay in a hotel or B and B but if you have a young family this may not be the cheapest or best option for you. As your children may have to be in bed at a certain time you may not want to be confined to one room in the hotel.

Caravan, lodges or cottages offer great space and often the mod cons such as microwaves, cookers and showers / baths that will make life a little easier but they can be costly especially if you are restricted to going in the school holidays. Tent camping holidays are possibly the cheapest way to go on holiday as you can get a pitch on a basic site for between £10 – £15 per night but you do need to consider the cost of camping equipment if you don’t already have it. Glamping is a relatively new concept and many holiday parks are now offering accommodation that falls within this band. Often you can find a tent that is already pitched for you and that has full sized beds, cookers and showers for a cost in-between the cost of a caravan and a tent pitch. This can allow you to save money whilst still having a little luxury.

 

With summer fast approaching many people are looking for places to take their family for a holiday. It may be that you can only go for a few days, but want to make sure that you have lots of fun and excitement whilst there. If you have children then you will probably want to go somewhere that has activities that are suited to their ages and that will allow all the family to spend time together as well as doing the thing they enjoy.

Adventure parks are a great way to fill your days with fun and then giving you quality time to spend together in the evenings, enjoying a meal, watching on site entertainment or even relaxing with popcorn and a film in your apartment.

Theme parks such as Alton Towers, have onsite accommodation, meaning you can arrive the night before and go straight in to the park when it opens in the morning. You do not have to worry about driving home afterwards and can then go out for a meal or enjoy time in the water park when you have had enough of the main theme park.

Some people are lucky enough to be able to take two holidays a year. This is often done when people have children as they want to be able to have a holiday that is focused completely around the children and what they want to do and then a holiday that is aimed more at the parents.

Obviously this does usually cost more than having one break but if you can take book a holiday for the parents outside of school holidays then there are some great savings to be had.

Other families chose to always go away as a family, believing that a holiday should be for everyone. They may split their time doing some children based activities and others more for the adults. If you wish to go on one holiday for all, then you could look at what holiday clubs are available for the children at your chosen destination, so everyone gets a bit of time to themselves.