Frugal Holiday Plans

The television is wall to wall at this time of year with advertisements exhorting us all to plan and book our summer break. In common with many this year, I'm having to tighten my belt, but I love a summer break, it gives me something to look forward to and affords a week away from everyday routine, cares and worries to recharge the batteries.

Now I'm never terribly extravagant in the holiday department, every year at this time my DH and I discuss where to go, we toy with the idea of venturing abroad this year and promptly discard it with "well there's still so much we want to see here - maybe next year." This leads to a discussion of possible holidays to the south of the country - not an area we have visited a great deal, so largely uncharted. Then one of us will invariably say, "if we go there though we'll only wish we'd gone to Scotland!" and so will begin the planning of another week in Scotland.

This year though the discussion centred less on where to go and more on whether to book a holiday at all - after all neither of our jobs are secure - what if one of us or worse, neither of us has a job?

After quite a bit of debate we decided to book a cheap self catering property that we can afford to pay for in full this month. The idea being that the accommodation is booked and paid for, we will have to buy food to eat whether at home or away and while we are working we will squirrel away a little each month for diesel.

OK - I've done this before when the girls were young and we had many many happy holidays on a strict budget. First thing is to decide a rough area where you want to go. A couple of years ago we toured Scotland by motorbike. One of the areas we visited was new to us - the Ardnamurchan peninsula. Ardnamurchan is situated on the remote west coast of Scotland, it is a long, narrow peninsula along the shores of Loch Sunart and marks the most westerly tip of the British Mainland. Our stay at that time was brief, but we vowed to  return so we decided that this will be where we holiday this summer.

One of the views taken on our previous visit to Ardnamurchan

The next thing to be decided was budget. We set this at a maximum of £250. Now when you consider we need to book within the school summer holiday period you will appreciate that this is a rather small sum of money - but I was confident that I could do it. I realised we'd be hard pressed to find a cottage for that sum, but reasoned that a caravan might be a possibility. I knew we didn't want to book onto a caravan site as we look for peace and quiet on our holidays so it was off to search Google for a farm caravan.

Googling "self catering caravan Ardnamurchan" threw up a few possibilities. The first choice had decided to suspend the letting of their caravan, the second was fully booked over the summer holiday period, but I struck third time lucky and was able to hire one of the two lovely caravans below - and come in under budget at only £190 for the week!

The caravans are set on a farm and each caravan sleeps up to four people, with one twin and one double master bedroom, and each unit has a shower room. There is a  large and comfortable lounge, equipped with colour TV and a gas fire which opens into a fully-equipped kitchen with a gas cooker, a fridge and a microwave. Gas is included in the rental and all linen and towels are provided.

Having booked the accommodation I'm beginning to feel quite excited - just need to plan the food now. It might seem a little early to be planning food, but if I plan a menu now, I can buy a little with each grocery shop and so cut costs while we are there.