If you’re looking for staycation inspiration, this Dorset holiday park is packed with family-friendly facilities. Even in high season, there’s no need to fight for space on the beach as it has its own private stretch.
The holiday park is just steps from a private beach(Image: Hoseasons)
An independently owned holiday park could be the perfect spot for an Easter break or May half-term staycation thanks to its facilities that include a private beach.
Set on Dorset’s spectacular Jurassic Coast, Freshwater Beach Holiday Park has rolling green hills on one side and a vast, unspoilt beach on the other. It sits on a flat spot with direct access to its own private beach with fine shingle that gives it a golden hue. Follow the beach north, and you’ll reach West Bay Cliffs, while to the south, the River Bride crosses the beach as it flows out to sea.
Just steps from the sand are some of the park’s comfortable caravans, and you can pick from luxury mobile homes that have uninterrupted sea views, or simple, modern options in the heart of the park.
If you prefer to bring your own tent, motorhome, or campervan, then there are grass and hard-standing pitches available. Facilities include electricity, water, showers, and WiFi, so you have everything you need.
At the heart of the park is the Jurassic Fun Centre, where guests can enjoy heated indoor and outdoor pools with splash parks and lots of fun features. There’s also a 10-pin bowling alley, restaurant, and bar, so there’s plenty to enjoy right on-site.
A short walk away is the charming Dorset village of Burton Bradstock, where you’ll find a couple of traditional pubs and lots of pretty stone cottages. There’s also West Bay, just a few minutes’ drive away, a small harbour town on the mouth of the River Brit, which is especially popular in the summer months. It has a traditional seaside feel, with fish and chip shops, cosy cafés, and a beach cove that has fine shingle and seas calm enough for swimming in the right conditions.
The South West Coastal Path runs close to the park, meaning there’s lots of incredible coastal scenery right on Freshwater’s doorstep. The area is also full of interesting National Trust sites such as Coney’s Castle, ancient hillforts surrounded by green hills and unspoilt countryside, and Golden Cap, a hilly coastal walk that rewards walkers with views across Lyme Bay to Dartmoor on clear days.
Mapperton House, Gardens & Wildlands are a must-visit for history buffs and lovers of nature. This Jacobean manor opens its doors on selected dates, so you can tour its ornate rooms. Its formal gardens include an arboretum and orangery, while its wildlands cover over 1,000 acres, bursting with wildflowers, birds, and deer.
Camping and touring pitches at Freshwater Beach Holiday Park start at £34 a night and hardstanding pitches from £40 a night. Holiday homes start from £210 for three nights based on two adults sharing. Find out more and book online via Freshwater Beach’s official website.
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A lesser-known Spanish resort is shaping up to be one of the more affordable escapes, with £3 pints and £15 flights, combined with its allure of reliable sunshine and dramatic landscapes
This Spanish region offers a sun-soaked getaway with a cheaper price tag(Image: First Choice/2015 lunamarina/Shutterstock)
A beautiful Spanish region that enjoys a tropical climate is ‘cheaper than Costa del Sol’ with £3 pints and £15 flights, just three hours from the UK.
Costa del Sol is a popular tourist destination, with the city of Marbella attracting thousands of holidaymakers each year, yet it’s not always the cheapest. While there are more affordable areas to visit in Costa del Sol, there’s another beautiful resort in Spain while worth exploring, and it could save you almost £300.
Known as the ‘desert coast’, Costa de Almería offers almost year-round sunshine and is one of the driest climates on the continent, so you’ll rarely need to worry about the weather. With stunning volcanic beaches, azure waters and desert landscapes, it’s a haven for travellers seeking a quieter escape from the tourist crowds.
Often overlooked by Brits, Costa de Almería has been hailed by the experts at First Choice as “significantly cheaper than Spain’s main holiday hotspots”. First Choice found that a seven-night stay at the four-star Best Oasis Tropical hotel in Almería during early May costs £281 per person, including flights – that’s around £290 cheaper per couple than a similar break in the Costa del Sol.
The travel experts also found that a beer could set you back just £3 (€3.50) in Almería, compared to the holiday hotspots of Marbella, which could cost as much as £5.19 (€6) per beer.
They also found that a three-course meal for two in Almería would typically cost between £25 (€30) and £30 (€35). This is in stark contrast to the same meal in Marbella, which could range from £51 (€60) to £86 (€100), saving around £61 (€70) per meal in Almería, and a total of £427 (€493) during a seven-night stay.
If that wasn’t enough to tempt you, Costa de Almería welcomes more than 3,000 hours of sunshine a year and only sees around 26 days of rainfall a year. It also receives 93 per cent less rain in May than the Costa del Sol, averaging just 1mm compared to 15mm.
Thanks to its location near the Tabernas Desert, the experts at First Choice say the region enjoys a warmer climate and sun-soaked rays “weeks before neighbouring areas.” Alongside its tropical climate and cost-cutting benefits, Almería offers plenty to explore, including diverse landscapes and golden-sand beaches.
The protected Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park is well worth a visit, with its volcanic cliffs, hidden coves and some of the most picturesque Spanish beaches. There’s also the stunning Tabernas Desert to explore on a guided day tour, as well as the charming whitewashed hilltop village of Mojácar.
Some may recognise Mojácar, which was famously used as the backdrop for major Hollywood movies, including Indiana Jones, as well as the hit TV series Game of Thrones. For film buffs, there’s the opportunity to visit the preserved Wild West film set of MiniHollywood Oasys, with shows and attractions, to feel as though you’ve stepped directly into Indiana Jones.
As a lesser-known destination compared to the Costa del Sol, there are few high-rise hotels towering over the beach, and quieter beaches, so you’ll often be able to find the perfect sun-soaked spot. What’s more, flights from London Stansted to Almería start from as little as £15 one-way, according to Sky Scanner.
Kevin Nelson, Managing Director at First Choice, said: “Costa Almería quietly delivers some of the most reliable spring sunshine in mainland Europe, yet it hasn’t caught up in price. That gap between weather and cost is what makes it stand out”
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WHEN I told my friends about my recent European getaway, many met me with two questions in quick succession: firstly, “Where?” and then pointedly “Why?”
I’m not surprised. I hadn’t heard of the city – a two-and-a-half-hour flight from London – until I decided to whisk my wife away on a romantic weekend there. What I found was meals out for less than £10, posh Airbnbs for only £50-a-night, and drinks at about half the price we pay at home.
This European city is like something from a fairytaleCredit: GettyA view of it’s famous city gateCredit: AlamyAnd it boasts a stunning castleCredit: Alamy
In recent years, we’ve had weekend breaks in Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Vienna, Lisbon, Rome and Amsterdam – but they can often feel too big to truly explore over a weekend.
Add in long airport journey times, expensive hotels and pricey restaurants, and you come home knackered and empty pocketed.
Increasingly, I’ve found that it’s simply more enjoyable to head somewhere smaller: instead of Paris, try Toulouse; instead of Barcelona, try Grenada. So, when we decided on a trip to Poland, we picked a trip to Lublin, rather than Warsaw or Krakow.
We wanted to go on a “couple weekend” – like a date night for married people, but conducted over 48 hours somewhere well away from home.
Except for Vienna, all our previous minibreaks were in Western Europe – this time, we wanted something more exotic, perhaps to the East or North.
Plus, we were seriously skint. Anything in Scandinavia was prohibitively expensive.
One friend had just been to the chic Arctic Circle town of Tromso in Norway and warned: “For even a very average bottle of wine in a bog standard restaurant you are looking at eighty quid”.
I thought he must have mis-typed, but no, that number did indeed have a Y on the end – eighty.
So Norway was out. Sweden and Finland didn’t sound much better when it came to price.
So when a friend suggested an affordable alternative, Poland, I was interested. Which is how we came to settle on Lublin.
In the east of the country, with a population of around 327,000, Lublin is closer to the border with Ukraine than the capital, Warsaw.
The city featured prominently in one of our favourite films of last year, A Real Pain, which won Kieran Culkin a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
It came across as both fascinating and charming.
We then found we could get a smart Airbnb double room in the heart of this pretty city for £50 a night – and return flights out of Luton on Wizz Air for just £37 each. Sold!
Lublin is a tiny airport – just four gates – so easy and quick to navigate, then there’s a little single carriage tram-like train to ferry you very cheaply the few miles into the city to find that double room.
Our rental was an absolute steal for the price: views from two large windows looking directly at the dramatic castle with ramparts that dominate the old town, and it also features as a backdrop in A Real Pain
The Market Place in the old town, Mandragora restaurantCredit: AlamyJust outside Lublin is a concentration camp, Majdanek, where 78,000 diedCredit: John SturgisAn Airbnb double room in the heart of the city cost £50 a night and return flights out of Luton on Wizz Air cost £37Credit: John Sturgis
A bottle here for the price of a glass there
The food and drink were a steal too; the wine in particular was a lot, lot cheaper than you’d find in the UK.
A bottle here for the price of a glass there.
In both restaurants, the food was less than half the price for something comparable at home – generous mains for under a tenner.
In fact, everything from Uber rides to gallery tickets seemed to have this “less than half” aspect, which left us thinking it might be even more financially advantageous to simply move here.
Lublin was beautiful, intense, constantly interesting and surprisingly romantic- but also very, very cheap – perfect for the couple with no money.
Even though Lublin is the largest city in eastern Poland, there are far fewer crowds than Krakow, making it the ideal family destination too.
The movie A Real Pain – starring Jesse Eisenberg, pictured, – is set in LublinCredit: YouTubeChurch in front of apartment buildings in Lublin, PolandCredit: Alamy
Of course, we wanted to check out the locations features in A Real Pain too.
The film, a mix of comedy and tragedy, told the story of two cousins, Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg, visiting the city where their Jewish grandmother had grown up before being caught up in – and narrowly escaping – the Holocaust.
That historic atrocity looms large in Lublin.
Until 1939, the city was one of the great Jewish centres in all of Europe, comparable to Oxford for its cultural reach.
First, we headed to the Old Jewish Cemetery – but it was closed for the sabbath so we could only peer in at the atmospheric stone monuments.
At a hotel around the corner, a travel group leader told me that the building had been the largest Jewish academy in the world when it opened in 1930.
But barely a decade later, its entire library burned in what is now the hotel carpark and its students were systematically slaughtered.
Just outside Lublin is a concentration camp, Majdanek, where 78,000 died.
But of course, it wasn’t just Polish Jews who were murdered.
Outside that cemetery, for example, a sign proclaimed: “This place is hallowed by the blood of Poles, prisoners of Lublin Castle, executed by the Nazis on 23 December 1939.”
The fairytale castle we were looking at from our room had a dark past.
The other film location we tried was a restaurant, Mandragora, in the old town, where Culkin’s character plays the piano.
On our visit to this delightfully old-fashioned place, there was also music, from a small band with accordion, fiddle and clarinet that seemed to give a pre-war atmosphere.
Even more retro-atmospheric was a restaurant not in the film, Zaczarowana, where a gothic interior of shadows, black curtains and candlelight made it feel like we were on the set of some composite film mash-up of the Frankenstein and Dracula stories.
Like travelling back in time
There’s lots to see in the city too.
If travelling with kids, you can head to the Open Air Village Museum, which is an immersive museum with historic farmhouses and of course, farm animals too.
There’s also a water fountain and light show in Litewski Square to watch in awe.
In the Old Town you will find pastel coloured houses, neatly lined up and there is also the castle – one of the oldest royal castles in the country – which has great views across the city.
Lublin, Poland, is a great destination for a cheap breakCredit: John Sturgis
According to Backpack Adventures, it is even like “travelling back in time” with a number of gates leading onto narrow alleys.
The city has over 150 trolleybuses to get around the city, which were introduced back in 1953.
And it is the perfect time to visit, as the city has been named one of Europe’s Capitals of Culture for 2029.
Hungry? Head to U Szewca in the Old Town, where you an discover a pub with sport-themed rooms, pizza for just £6 and Bolognese for around £7.50, and a beer for about £4.25.
When it comes to grabbing something to drink, head to Nocny Portier where you will find “upside-down pot plants, absurd monkey portraiture and terrific cocktails from a movie-inspired menu”, according to The Times.
You even need a password to head downstairs to the speakeasy and once inside, you will be able to grab a cocktail for just £6 delivered on a toy railway.
A number of changes have been made to passport rules since Brexit, and while most of us have got to grips with the basics, there are still things that catch holidaymakers out year after year
Check your passport before you book your holiday(Image: Getty)
Since Brexit, a raft of changes have been implemented to passport regulations, and whilst the majority of us have got our heads around the basics, there are still elements that trip up holidaymakers each year.
From ensuring your passport was issued within the last ten years, to verifying you have at least three months validity on your passport when entering the EU, there are several passport checks you should carry out before booking your getaway. Now is the prime time to scrutinise your passport, as renewing it at this point in the year helps you dodge the summer rush.
Whilst you may have double-checked details such as the dates and confirmed there’s no physical damage to your passport, one aspect many people overlook is the number of blank pages they have left, particularly given today’s digital age.
A standard UK passport contains 34 pages, and typically, you receive an entry and exit stamp when you go through passport control. This practice is likely to be phased out soon for holidaymakers visiting Europe due to the introduction of the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES), but for the time being, you can assume most countries will continue adding their stamps.
Numerous countries have precise requirements regarding the number of blank pages needed for passport stamps. For EU nations, one to two pages is typically adequate, whilst destinations such as South Africa demand two, reports the Express.
Certain countries will also insist that the two blank pages are consecutive, as one page is used for the entry stamp, followed by one for departure.
Some nations that require visas for entry still utilise stickers, which are attached to blank pages, though these are generally being replaced by e-visas.
There are places that demand four pages, but the record belongs to Namibia, with reports that travellers can be required to present six blank pages upon arrival. Brits ought to verify requirements for their destination when organising their travels.
It’s important to note that not all pages can receive stamps. British passports contain an ‘observation page’ at the back reserved for official notes.
This may feature information about the holder’s dual nationalities or alternative names, but most often it remains empty. However, it doesn’t qualify as a blank page as it cannot be stamped.
So, what should holidaymakers do if they lack sufficient pages?
You’ll need to renew your current passport prior to your journey, as extra pages cannot be added. This means paying the standard passport renewal fee, which for an adult passport is £94.50 according to the UK government website.
If you’re a regular globetrotter, it’s worth considering a 54-page frequent traveller passport when you next apply. Whilst it costs slightly more at £107.50, it can prove more economical than renewing your passport in a couple of years simply because you’ve exhausted all the pages.
Children under 16 can also obtain a frequent traveller passport for the reduced price of £74.50. Frequent traveller passports for adults are additionally available through the one-day premium or one-week fast track services, though these cost £235 or £191 respectively.
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THE Cotswolds is already a great place to visit, but nearby is a farm that parents are raving about as a great day out,
Millets Farm opened back in 1952, originally as a dairy farm.
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Millets Farm in Oxfordshire has lots of great activities for the familyCredit: MilletsFor example, you can head off on a farm animal walkCredit: Millets
Now, the farm is home to multiple attractions including a play barn, Maize Maze and Farmyard Golf.
The attraction is split into pre-booked activities and no pre-booking required activities.
For example, you could head off on the Millets Animal Walkway, where visitors will see a number of farm animals including goats, chickens, rabbits, horses, birds and alpacas.
The play area also doesn’t need pre-booking and has a mix of swings, slides, climbing frames and more.
There are also token-operated ride-on tractors, diggers and a crane which little ones can go on.
One token costs £1.75, three tokens cost £4.50 and five tokens cost £6.
If the weather isn’t rainy, you can also check out the 10 acre Phoebe Wood, where there are a number of woodland walks.
There are then several activities you have to book ahead for, such as Sprouts Play Barn with a four-lane wavy cow slide, 360 tunnel, a ‘mini Millets farmers market’ with seven soft role-play areas, a sports court and an area for under five-year-olds.
One recent visitor said: “This has to be the best soft play in Oxfordshire, it’s absolutely huge and offers a great variety of activities and play equipment for a wide age range.
“There’s a little baby area at the front, and then lots of fun for bigger kids on the higher levels.”
Another visitor added: “The soft play was the best we have ever been to (and we have been to A LOT).
“Every section was clean, looked brand new and so well thought out.
“It’s huge with four floors and the under fives section is also the biggest I’ve seen.”
Included in the Sprouts admission tickets, you also get access to the outdoor play area which has slides, beams and water play.
There’s also an indoor and outdoor play areaCredit: Millets
The budget airline, Jet2, is offering travellers the chance to explore a lesser-known island with diverse landscapes and uncrowded beaches as they launch a new exclusive route
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Flights to the beautiful island are available to book with Jet2(Image: Getty Images)
Jet2 has launched a new route to a beautiful island with ancient streets, traditional villages and pristine beaches, offering a laid-back ambience away from busy crowds.
Jet2 has expanded its summer 2027 program from London Gatwick and launched a new route to the beautiful Greek island of Lesvos. The lesser-known island, also known as Lesbos, is situated in the northeastern Aegean Sea, offering turquoise waters, unspoilt sprawling beaches, hot springs, majestic forests, and dramatic volcanic landscapes.
As the third-largest island in Greece, and with its capital, Mytilini, Lesvos is brimming with history, from its charming medieval streets and traditional Mediterranean villages to its fascinating architecture. It’s renowned for its ouzo, an anise-flavoured liqueur, and its olive groves, with more than 11 million trees nestled around the island.
The new Jet2 route to Lesvos will operate weekly on Sunday, from May 2 to 10 October 2027, and when we took a look, we found fares from £123. Flights to the Greek island, which offers blistering rays of 30C during the summer months, are available to book now.
In the meantime, Jet2 has announced a major sale for 35 of its sun-soaked destinations, including Lesvos, for holidaymakers travelling from London Gatwick next summer. The destinations currently on sale include:
Antalya
Tenerife
Lanzarote
La Palma
Fuerteventura
Gran Canaria
Alicante
Malaga
Girona
Palma (Majorca)
Ibiza
Menorca
Faro (Algarve)
Madeira
Crete (Heraklion)
Corfu
Kalamata
Kefalonia
Kos
Lesvos (Mytilene)
Preveza
Skiathos
Rhodes
Thessaloniki (Halkidiki)
Naples
Verona
Pula
Reus
Zante
Agadir
Hurghada
Bourgas
Malta
Paphos
Sharm El Sheik
The new exclusive route to Lesvos and the summer sale come just weeks before the budget airline launches flights and holidays from London Gatwick for the very first time on March 26. The major travel change is intended to give Jet2 passengers greater flexibility for their holiday getaways.
Steve Heapy, CEO of Jet2.com and Jet2holidays, said: “Since we announced the launch of flights and holidays from London Gatwick, the reaction from customers and independent travel has been incredible, showing just how much demand there is for our industry-leading product and service. This popularity means we are significantly expanding our programme in just our second summer of operations from London Gatwick, offering holidaymakers even more choice and flexibility.
“As well as offering a fantastic selection of flights and holidays to choose from, we are giving customers the chance to get their Summer 2027 holiday booked in nice and early. With the launch of flights and holidays from London Gatwick just around the corner, and Summer 27 going on sale too, this is an incredibly exciting time, both for our company and for customers across the region.”
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