That me and the DCs will probably NEVER have a nice sunny holiday abroad becuase my DH refuses to do the 'Brits Abroad' thing

[PollyPentapeptide]

So we instead we have to have endless holidays traipsing around the Lake District or sitting on wet and windy welsh beaches

Not that the Lake District/Wales/Cornwall aren't very lovely (because they are!) but because that is all we do!

All of DC's friends will go back to school in September with tales of trips to Spain or France or Florida but our DC's won't (and probably never will)

[pointydog]

I must have missed that. I just saw the 'we are poor' bit

[PollyPentapeptide]

Marina, do you think there would be a stretch that the kids could manage? They are aged 7 to 12 (I had em fast!)

[Marina]

Well, I missed the bit about the several thousand £ being Polly's dh's reaction, so maybe Corsica is not doable after all
The Auvergne is cheaper Polly

[Marina]

Unfortunately the first bit of the walk the way it is usually done, West-East, is the stiffest scramble
I notice that the Eastern end, at Conca, takes you up to the Col de Bavella (apparently stunning scenery) and I think the landscape is a bit less rugged at that end. Conca is close to Porto Vecchio which is a popular resort but IMHO the NW of the island is the loveliest
We did not scramble up from Calenzana (btw this is a nice village with several rental properties in it and quite near the sea). We did a loop of the GR20 from our second week base in sleepy Zicavu in the heart of the interior

[WilfSell]

I bet he's never done volcano trekking before?

[vacaloca]

Aha, sorry to go on about Northern Spain but it's the bit I know the most. Just 20 minutes from the coast there are the Picos de Europa with mountains twice as high as any you could find in England. Show him the photos in Wikipedia (plenty of mountains covered in clouds). So you/he can do a good trek in the morning and then go down to the coast in the afternoon for a nice stroll in a fishing village or one of the many non-touristy beaches. I don't think the language is that big a problem either - most people seem to survive perfectly well with a good phrasebook, although I realise you'd get more out of it if you speak the language.

[mandymac]

Just spent a week in a great resort in northern spain - about 35 mins on the train from Barcelona. It is a seaside town, with a great beach - wide, very shallow sea, groovy beach bars every 500m or so. It is a working town, with a big port. No British Mass tourism (we didn't see one fish & chip shop, etc), seems to mainly be weekend spanish holiday place.
We got an apartment through a spanish website: Niumba i think and got flights with Easy Jet one way and BMI Baby back (best combination of times/costs).
The resort is called Vilanova I La Geltru.
If you could manage the flights, the train from the airport was about 5 euros per person and you wouldn't need a car. We went to the local covered market for food and ate in most evening, lunchtimes, with the odd Tapas bar lunch or dinner thrown in.
I can understand where your DP is coming from in terms of shying away from 'package' holiday, as it isn't really what I like, so found that doing it like this worked well for us.

[Bink]

You can do that going against the flow thing (as described by Wilfsell) pretty much anywhere on the continent. Eg we did it in Crete this Easter by turning right out of the airport (so going west) instead of left (eastern Crete being the domain of concrete megaresorts). I read a great travel article once about taking a cheap flight to - somewhere on the Greek mainland -Thessaloniki? and just going in the opposite direction to everyone else, finding your accommodation along the way. So it's a well known manoeuvre.

However - it might be tricky with 4 kids; and it would rule out sandy beaches in high summer, because you just don't find those off the beaten path (except on Scottish islands). I still think your local-immersion, budget-beating, big-family-friendly, glamorous-as-your-dh-likes-or-not option is the house swap.

[pointydog]

Agree completely bink. We did it in Crete too. And mainland/island Greece, and Turkey.

[Marina]

We do it in France, our destination of choice, most years
It is so EASY I promise, Mr Polly.
Two years ago - week in gite not far from French Ardennes. £200. It slept seven. We were 30 mins from a lovely lake with beach and watersports, did a day trip to Lille, another to an astonishing Saltaire-like place over the border in Belgium, walked in the rolling foresty terrain - met NO Brits and made friends with the entire village.

[Bink]

Oh, and PS: a tip from Mr Bink: if ever deciding to have a posh meal on your holiday, make sure you expressly ask for a recommendation for a local wine.

Instant cordiality & welcome guaranteed, plus usually highly satisfactory on a crude greed plane too.

[Bink]

And, if hiking in the Bernese Oberland, teach your children to chirp "Gruss Gott" at other walkers.

[May2December]

YABU - UK has gorgeous holiday resorts - stop being so spoiled and stop thinking about what you don't have and concentrate on what you do!

[barbarianoftheuniverse]

Our best ever holiday was a house swop- can't wait to do it again.

[emj23]

There are lots of lovely places in the UK, Devon, Cornwall and Pembrokeshire spring immediately to mind. Also, I'm not sure what he means by 'Brits Abroad'. Not everyone who goes to another country wears Union Jack shorts, gets hopelessly sunburned and spends the whole time demanding egg and chips. It's not inevitable that people will look down on you just because you're from the UK.

[SixSpotBurnet]

Take them on your own. What's the problem?