What you need to know

So with lots of holiday destinations in different phases of lockdown, FCO advice against travelling or the quarantine rules ….what to do next … obvious choice is to go somewhere in the country you live. So we thought we would give it a go and see what has changed and how it is holidaying at home.

So what we will do is not so much tell you where we went etc but how we found it.

Plan, plan and more planning

Whether you’re a strategic spreadsheet kind a guy or a fly by the seat of your pants kinda girl, its all in the prep for this one

Where to go – picking a destination and finding a place you can afford, and thinking of your health and safety
Most hotels have a good policy in place , we stayed in a chain hotel we stayed for 3 nights and we were told they would be no room cleaning, if you need your bin emptied leave it outside the door in the morning, same with the towels and speak to reception for replacements and for extra coffee and tea etc. So I guess for some this might be off putting buy for us it was fine. Don’t forget to mask inside and hand sanitize as much as possible.
Day trips …this is where planning your trip comes into its own, most of the places we visited needed booking in advance and there were a limited amount of places and time slots. Some were every ½ hour so you needed to be there in that time slot. Others were hourly if you got there outside the time it was advised you won’t get in. Things to take into account , how long you will stay there ? If you are visiting more than one place in a day , time to travel between, we found Google very helpful by using maps with directions and also some attractions say how long people stay there for . Which also helps. We found it easier to give more time than less for travelling between places and looking at the places busier times.
Places to eat- if you’re looking for a sit down meal you need to book . I know this sounds obvious however we saw lots of disappointed faces when they realised , again it’s all down to planning, knowing where you will be and at what time.
Money – I know what you are thinking we are.in our own country, yes you are, again most places are only taking cards debit or credit. So make sure you have more than one in case something fails. Keep this in mind, for takeaways , buying souvenirs, coffees. It sounds silly but it’s something you don’t automatically think of.
Money again yes again. The flip side of cards and holidaying is if you are driving a car , you will need to park. There is a great divide in how you pay, if you are going out to rural areas it will be by coins , whatttt yes that right, very few had card readers, but some you can download an app called just park and pay by card on that. Which was the best.
Deals – making your money go further, so when booking the attractions, have a Google and see if there are any discounts, or vouchers for the attraction. For example, we and to the Eden Project it’s £28.50 per adult, we looked on line and if you bought the gardeners world magazine from may 2020 for £6.99 you get 2 for 1 entry to this and lots of other places, as we said its all in the planning. Another one we found was English Heritage you can get a joint membership for £9.09 a month for a year and you can get in free to places ( we used it for Stonehenge and Tintagel castle ) .
Attractions – anything indoors you need to wear a mask, make sure you are social distanced in queues and most places have hand sanitizer.

Hopefully this has given a little insight into taking a staycation. What to think about. Just plan it out and have some fun ! (Take some coins for parking ) Let the good times roll!