Wow – just when I needed to find out about Gîtes, here’s a great blog post all about them!

The one main disadvantage is that often (and definitely in high season) you need to stay for a week (also usually from Saturday to Saturday).

I remember reading once about how much British people loved watching neighbours – they were enthralled with the terrible Aussie accents, the endless sun and I suspect, the general abundance of Chavs in action.

Now I’m not a big TV watcher, and I don’t loose too much time on YouTube. But I’ve been absolutely gripped with the holiday videos on the Eurocamp website. I loooooove listening to the British accents and descriptions of what makes a great family holiday!

We are booking some of our accommodation with Eurocamp. So I’ve also been reading reviews on Trip Advisor. I’ve found that some of the negative reviews have to be taken with a large grain of salt – some of the campsite get negative reviews because of rain!!! Now, there’s not many campsites that can actually control the weather, but it does show how desperate the quest for sunshine is for many UK residents! Something that we take totally for granted here in Australia.

If you want to see more holiday videos they can also be found at:
Keycamp
Canvas Holidays
Siblu have podcasts

This is going to work best for folks who need accommodation in June / July or who don’t mind the fact that the two nights are split from the extra night.

Because she is brilliant, she was on the email list for Travelodge in the UK. And because she is phenomenal, when the sale started at 6am UK time, she was on the net booking stuff on our behalf. The reason this was such a big deal was that the rooms were £9 per night. That’s not per person, that’s per room. Even the family rooms which (God Bless Travelodge) sleep four were £9!!! I also tried to access the site, but the rest of the UK were also trying to book and the Travelodge site was heavily overloaded. I managed to get a few more nights and the overall result is that we have saved ourselves a bazillion dollars in accommodation in the UK. (I actually booked two family rooms per hotel as we have five of us, that’s two rooms for £18 – unbelievable).

Although most of the £9 rooms sold out in the first few hours of the sale, Travelodge still has some £19 rooms available. Still very worthwhile checking out if you need accommodation in August and September in the UK. Even the normal Travelodge rates are significantly cheaper than competitors. Sure, they lack things like character, ambience and miniscule bottles of shampoo, but when you consider that the Youth Hostels start at about £65 per night for a family room, it’s a sacrifice worth making for families on a budget.

The other thing that Travelodges don’t have is anywhere to prepare meals. However, I consider the money we saved on accommodation justifies eating out for the evening meals, instead of our usual modus operandi on holidays which is to pay the extra to book units with cooking facilities only to end up eating out anyway because we are on holiday….
(Note: Travelodges do have the option of adding on breakfasts for a price and tea and coffee making facilities). Now if only the rooms actually do look like the pictures, I’ll be really, really happy.

I’m not even going to discuss the impact of the extra body on cars and suitcases.

You know all those lovely family rooms you read about?  Yeah, they are for people with 2 kids.  A family is 2 adults and 2 kids, once you hit number 3 your accommodation options decrease dramatically in number and increase exponentially in price.

Take New York:  unless we want to pay USD400 a night plus tax, we are stuck with either a backpackers, many of which won’t guarantee us our own room, or travelling to Union City, NJ or Jamaica, NY.  Good fun.

In New York I have it down to two options:

1/ The West Side YMCA.   We can get a room with 3 sets of bunks for $210 using a shared bathroom.   They will even give us the room to ourselves! And because they are a charity they don’t charge tax, which can be exhorbitant.   They have an onsite pool, fitness classes (for when I haven’t had enough exercise after a day of walking… yeah right!) and they are right by Central Park.  But they don’t have any kitchen facilities or even a refrigerator.   Bunk beds, welcome to America!

2/  Embassy Suites Secaucus.  It has the benefit of being $50 a night cheaper AND including breakfast and getting real beds and a private bathroom,  and a simple kitchenette thingy.  But it’s a train ride into town which would cost us $30 a day.

Decisions, decisions.

This is another fantastic site found by my SIL (mwha, mwha). I am put to shame by her ability to find these fab sites. This is exactly the site I needed when I was having a big panic about where we were going to stay in Tuscany. Of course, when I booked in Tuscany, I didn’t realise we were going to be sharing the accommodation with them. So it will be a little bit smaller than ideal. However, I have found some great places for our NEXT combined trip to Italy!!!

Ok, I have shamelessly borrowed this picture of a divine green kitchen. Look at this! How awesome is this!!!! I confess now to a weakness for very vibrant kitchens and this is delicious!!! I’ve added a link in case, like me, you urgently need to go and stay there now.

Here are a few links with helpful hints and photos of what to look for.

Bed Bugs on a mattress

Close up look at Bed Bugs

Checking Your Hotel for Bed Bugs 

Not so cute, huh?

We haven’t even stayed here yet and we got this gorgeous Christmas email and video. I am so excited, it looks so fabulous! I should say, we are actually booked into the Tuscan hill town rather than the farm but I believe we get to go out to the farm for a pasta making class!