anyone frustrated by the availability of nice cottages by the sea in school hols?

[florenceuk]

Am trying to book two weeks for next summer's holiday now - but already they are all booked up! The companies allocate them to people who've booked before - so the slots never come up. We are lucky to have one week in Trevone right at the beginning (18 July) but can't find anything for two weeks. Anyone go to North Cornwall here? Where do you book and who with?

[yaddayah]

Yes !

SO I booked next years holiday 2 months ago....

(sorry !)

[frogs]

Have you tried Helpful Holidays? We book a cottage with them every year (cottage is owned by my mum's friends, but that's the company they use). Nice to deal with, not toooo expensive, and not too booked up as far as I can tell.

[yaddayah]

Also recommend Helpful holidays (and the brochure is gorgeous)

(trying to be a bit more helpfull)

[Marina]

As of next year I go to France florence.

Quite apart from the lack of pretty, affordable accommodation (we have a fairly small budget I suspect, compared to other self-catering-seaside Mners), where we live it is not that much further to Normandy and the Pas de Calais than it is to Devon.
We've got a gite in Western Normandy booked for next summer, 3kms from the sea and a very pretty resort, for under £750 for fortnight in August. We were looking at that price for a week at that time in our old haunt in Woolacombe
But I believe Helpful Holidays, as recommended, are fab, if you can afford them

[florenceuk]

Mmn, helpful holidays have one cottage by the sea in Crackington Haven but it looks a bit dark. DH very risk averse (refused to contemplate France this year) as he hates flying with the kids. I would have thought Brittany was the nearest equivalent to Cornwall - I may have to start trawling websites. Yaddayah, where are you going? What's Woolacombe like?

[Marina]

Woolacombe is lovely, florence. But much of the rental property is flats, either purpose-built (small, nice developments on the whole - it's very unspoilt) or converted from some large villas. The cottagey-type property is found more up the hill in chocolate-box-quaint Mortehoe, but from there you have a steep walk down to beaches - lovely and wild though those are. Woolacombe proper has the nicest "managed" beach I've seen in England as well as some rockier, cove-y places.
We'll miss it, but not the tiny flat we squeezed ourselves into last summer for two rainwashed weeks .
We drive to France! Roads are EMPTY compared to the hack down to the West Country, and cheap ferry deals abound. We do an overnight stop in some pretty town or other at a Logis de France and make that part of the holiday.
Hoxtonchick rates Woolacombe too

[TellusMater]

Woolacombe is lovely. But we walked past it on Bank Holiday weekend in August, and OMG it was vacuum packed. As was Croyde. I'd go for a quieter area really.

[Marina]

But is any of the West Country quiet in August Tellus? One of the other things I won't miss is how congested the roads are. What you can't see so well from the road through the village is the near deserted charms of the wilder Combesgate Beach five minutes' walk towards Mortehoe. Of course, it has no loos or chip stands

[frogs]

This is my mum's friend's cottage. It is as lovely as it looks, and 15 mins drive from the sea.

[Marina]

It really is beautiful up that way Frogs isn't it (apart from the interesting drive in and out of Porlock)

[Fennel]

There are lots of quiet places in Devon in August, you just have to know them. Woolacombe and Croyde are always going to be the busiest beaches. But we got to lots of Devon beaches which aren't that busy even in August.

Mortehoe is gorgeous, we stay there sometimes.

[TellusMater]

I agree that there are quieter beaches. But I can't remember what they're called . DH is a native and he just takes us to places. And we camp.

[frogs]

Well obviously I'm not going to tell you where the nice beaches are, otherwise they'd be over-run.

But Saunton Sands is not a secret, and much less packed than Woolacombe/Croyde.

[Fennel]

Some of the beaches which seem less crowded, even in August, are Saunton Sands, Instow (huge and virtually empty), some of the small sandy coves around Lymouth, and in the South, Thurleston and Thurleston Sands don't seem to get very busy.

[yaddayah]

Would mention Instow beach although lovely is not (according to locals) particularly safe for little ones re swimming .

Fowey is lovely (has availability 8th August ?)

www.helpfulholidays.com/property.asp?ref=S22&year=2008

[hoxtonchick]

hooray for devon. i let mil take the kids to the beach though....

[florenceuk]

well, compared with St Ives, my guess is that much of Devon is fine and not too crowded! What we want is something that within walking distance of the sea, at least two bedrooms AND if I can poasibly achieve it, a dishwasher! this costs about £1000 pw in North Cornwall (if you can find one).

[Whizzz]

we've used Farm & Cottage hols
in fact are going to Cornwall at half term...counting down the days

[Desiderata]

I guess it is frustrating, but wouldn't it be nice if cottages by the sea had families living in them .. all the time!

[florenceuk]

Desiderata, I'm an economist, and I'm not even going to bother answering that.

[TeeJaye]

Totally agree with Marina on this - France is the place to go! The accomodation is sooooo much cheaper.

We had two weeks in August in a 3 bedroomed bungalow with it's own pool (albeit a easy-up one) in Cognac for £700! The tunnel cost us £150 (but ferry deals are about half that) and tolls were only £40 each way. We did the trip in one day - left the house @ 9:30am, caught the 2:20pm crossing and arrived at the bungalow at 10:30pm (11:30pm their time). It may seem long but we usually spend that long travelling when going on a med package holiday when you add the flight time, the travelling to the airport, the waiting around in the airports (both sides!) and the transport to the hotel!

In fact, the journey was so easy that we've already booked next years holiday ... but we're driving down to Spain to try and guarantee some nice weather!

[portonovo]

I don't actually think it is that hard to find seaside cottages in school holidays, it just needs a few fairly mindless hours dedicated to surfing the Internet!

We always go in the July/August school holidays and have found cottages for the five of us costing anything from £280-550 for a week. Sometimes we have used agencies but often I've found places just by searching for a particular place or area. Sometimes you then get cottages that are let direct by the owners and not as widely advertised, they are often cheaper too.

There are quieter places in the West Country - but like someone else said, I'm not giving away all of my secrets!

If you have a rough idea of where you'd like to go, how many bedrooms etc and possible budget (if you don't mind saying), I could see if anything we've used in the past fits the bill.

[Lilymaid]

My sympathies Flo. When we tried to book somewhere nice a couple of years ago we had great trouble. The most popular/nicest places are often booked year after year by the same families and you really need to book two years in advance. Like lots of others we now tend to go to France and despite the ferry costs it ends up cheaper than Cornwall in August with better weather and much cheaper and better food.

[clandestine]

If you can bear to go a bit further into Cornwall, this is a delightful cottage. april cottage

It is is a stunningly beautiful village with a sandy beach flanked by rocks and rock pools at both sides. 20yards away from the front door is a harbour with lovely boats where you can fish off the harbour wall. There are some lovely coastal walks from the top end of the village which take you to another very secluded beach where you pass a couple of wild Shetland ponies who keep the grass down on the coastal path

There is loads to do in the surrounding area too.


The house is really lovely, with a big fireplace for real fires and a huge kitchen and equally impressive boot room/utility room.