Last minute beach holiday this August - is it doable or am I mad? Or camping in the UK instead?

[Bubblyb00b]

Hi, my work schedule threw me a curveball and I just found out I can take a week off at the end of August - was told before it was not possible. Which is great as it means I can do something with my DS before he starts school.

Ideally, I would really, really want to get some sea and sunshine, but I have no idea what to do. I don't have a huge budget, but I'm not really fussy - something decent with sea access would be great. The problem is, all the usual places I look at either too expensive/ too hot in August/ require a car to get there (I don't drive). I was recommended a place near Alicante (can book it but have to get a train to get there); Valencia - too hot; Greece, Sicily and Sardinia - too expensive, fires, too hot... I look at Lastminute/ Booking site - they seem to be the cheapest.

I normally prefer to stay in apartments (not Airbnb, don't use that) but this time would be happy to consider any options as really want DS to have a splash around and get some vitamin D. I would really like to find some small-ish place, where I can get to by train or bus from the airport and where I can go to a free beach.

Could anyone recommend anything, if its doable? Alternatively, I was looking at going camping in the UK, though it seems August is pretty much booked. Gosh, I'm so frustrated and angry at my boss... But really want to make it work for my kid. Thanks in advance for any help!!

Bulgaria Sunny beach is cheap. Or the Canaries or Majorca

I’m in some Interrail groups having done a trip earlier this year. Eurostar seats with an Interrail pass are just about sold out for August and early September, as are a number of the high speed routes in France and Spain. If the OP has only a week a fair amount of time would be spent travelling to get somewhere hot, so although I would unreservedly recommend Interrailing in general I don’t think it would be a good choice given the OP’s time constraints.

There's still plenty of passes available later in the month according to the b-europe website. Unless it's somehow wrong. I even checked for in about a week's time, and there are still some, albeit for evening trains. For Easter I booked a good couple of months in advance though, and still didn't get exactly the train I wanted from Paris to London.

I meant passholder places, not passes.

Many thanks to @crackofdoom for the train tips!

How about Porto?

easyJet holidays here

It's an easy metro ride from the airport into the centre of Porto. The city itself is on the river, which is interesting - and you can also catch a tram straight to the coast, which takes about 20 minutes

Line no 1 tram

We only did a short trip out to the beach (we were only in Porto for a couple of days), but there seemed to be quite a lot going on there.

You're best ignoring the typical MN pretentious holiday nonsense of "take a train down to Nice and get a lovely little gîte ...." .
On your budget you can definitely get something decent for the two of you . Your best bet would be going onto Jet2 or TUI's websites for the dates you want , choosing 'any' destination and taking it from there .
Have a lovely time x

Sorry, but why is taking a train any more "pretentious" than taking a flight?

Price to start with .
A return train ticket to Nice , travelling this weekend , for one adult is nearly £700 . You can still get a return flight with Easyjet for less than £200 .
The poster has already very clearly stated the constraints of her budget .
And it's a budget that in real life is reasonable and can get her a decent holiday .
But in the world of MN there's mass hysteria if you can't afford to go by train and stay in a lovely AirBnB in an 'undiscovered' part of the world .
A pretentious desperation by some to prove their environmentally friendly credentials and stealth brag about their holiday budget .

Thank you very much for all your help. I do appreciate different suggestions, and will look into all of the options - maybe even plan something in the future! I will keep train option in mind though I would imagine if its so much cheaper compared to the normal rates it would get sold out quick, as someone already mentioned.
I think my best bet would be getting plane tickets to somewhere like Malaga, Alicante etc and then looking to get accommodation in the vicinity as a late deal... Fingers crossed!

Look at packages too though. Quite often it is cheaper, the transfer is included and there's more protection.

I'd put dates etc into the late deals section of Jet2, Tui and Easyjet, have a play with the filters to exclude any with low reviews, those aimed at the party crowd etc and see what comes up.

Berniebarks
Perhaps RTFT dear?

I did, in fact, go all the way from Cornwall to Nice and back last Easter, and it cost me £280*, including one night's accommodation on the Paris- Nice sleeper train and a side trip into Italy. Out of curiosity I looked up how much it would have cost me to get to Nice and the air tickets alone would have been about that, not including the train to Bristol, the airport bus from Temple Meads, and presumably the airport bus from Nice Airportinto town. (Or of course, I could have driven and paid for airport parking. Because that's cheap isn't it 🙄).

*my Interrail pass was a bit cheaper than normal because they had a 15% off sale.

And FYI, I'm a single mum on benefits, and my holiday budgets are usually way way below the eye watering sums quoted on MN. This Easter, I took 2 DC Interrailing round Europe for 2 weeks- Brussels, Innsbruck, Venice, Rome, Genova, Nice, Paris- for a total budget of £1600.

Now you tell me again how "pretentious" I'm being 🙄

I'm not your dear .
And please spare me the rolling eyes .
The poster is asking about taking a holiday in the next few weeks therefore your anecdote about the cost of your holiday last Easter is irrelevant to the post .
Unless you're virtual signalling of course , dear ... 🥱

@crackofdoom I must be super thick but I don't understand how it works. What pass would I need? What does "4 days within 1 month mean"? So, for example, the site tells me to book a "pass" for £226, and what do I get for that?

I will probably be flying this time as I don't want trying something new on such short notice; but the whole interrail thing really intrigued me.

Berniebarks

Again, RTFT. You're just making yourself look stupid here.

OP OK, so 4 days in one month means you have 4 days of rail travel, to be used within 1 month. You "activate" the mobile pass you receive (unless you opt for a paper one) on your first travel day (you can do a practice activation in advance, and then deactivate again). You get one "inbound" and one "outbound" day, when you can use your pass in your country of origin. So, let's say theoretically you live in....Barrow in Furness. On day 1, you could leave Barrow super early, change at Carlisle (I'm making this up BTW, never checked how to get from Barrow to London!), down to Euston, walk to St Pancras, onto an afternoon Eurostar to Paris, arrive at Gare du Nord, time for dinner on Paris, and then catch a night sleeper train to Vienna. Providing you board your sleeper before midnight, that's all one travel day!! Then....have a couple of days exploring Vienna. Then catch a train to Venice.....travel day 2.A couple of days exploring Venice. Then....slow trains across N. Italy and catch the night sleeper from Nice to Paris- travel day 3. 2 days in Paris, then travel day 4 is the Eurostar back to London, and back home to Barrow!!

(If you did do this, you would have to pay sleeper supplements too. Paris to Nice is only about 20€ though- and worth every cent! 😱)

If it sounds complicated, that's because it is 😆 The Man in Seat 61 will help you a lot with it all though, as will the Interrail and Eurrail Travellers Facebook group.

Out of interest, could it be done for that price at 2-3 weeks' notice, like what the OP is looking for?

I find that most MN holidays are either ludicrously expensive (IKOS) or suspiciously cheap and in the case of the latter, only available at the price quoted if you book a year in advance and spend hours planning and looking for deals.

OP, if you don't want super hot, I'd probably look at the Canaries or Costa Brava/Dorado and start by looking to see what cheap flights are available and if there's suitable accommodation on booking.com.

But like I said before, it's very possible that Tui, Easyjet or Jet2holidays will do a package for less than booking independently and it's a really easy way to book.

BarbaraofSeville yes it could, theoretically speaking.

The only sticking points would be: if you could get a passholder reservation on the Eurostar (see posts passim on how to find that out BEFORE you buy a pass), and accommodation prices. I think Easter is probably even more expensive for accommodation in major cities than August is, but I'm not sure how many major cities you'd want to do in August anyway.

I booked most of our accommodation about 2 months in advance, but our accommodation in Rome let us down about 2 weeks in advance, and I managed to find somewhere nice- although not technically in Rome!- for £75 a night- over the Easter weekend- at the last minute.

@crackofdoom thank you very much!! I will most definitely look into this, I live in London so this makes thins easier. I'm also a single mum so having the opportunity to travel like this is really great.

@BarbaraofSeville Are you in Seville? I loved it so much, what a city!

I'm looking at the shortest flights as I don't particularly enjoy flying (hence my interest in Interrail). Weirdly, at the moment it makes no difference if I book flight/ hotel separately or together. I think I could get 6 nights somewhere not too boring for around 1k )) I will keep looking ))

@BarbaraofSeville I might not use Interrail for this trip but its still a great tip, I never heard of it before ))

It's a pleasure OP, I hope you have a nice time whatever you do!

I only heard about Interrail during lockdown- I mean, I'd heard of it before, but thought it was just something students did. Sadly, by the time we were able to go, DS1 was over 12 so I had to buy him a (still discounted) youth pass, but DS2 got a free one. It's an especially good deal if you're a single mum, because you only have to buy one full price pass!

@crackofdoom thank you x

I’m a convert to Interrailing and it’s very far from the ridiculous picture that @BernieBarks paints (while clearly knowing nothing about it) but I did state in my earlier post that I didn’t feel it was a suitable holiday to be planning at short notice in peak season. Gone are the days when you just bought a pass and hopped on and off any train you liked. I’d definitely advise the OP to keep things simple this time round.

@crackofdoom I got my pass with a 50% discount! (Interrail’s 50th anniversary)

I missed out on the 50% discounts, boo!

I was wondering exactly what I'd do in OP's place, and it's difficult because I'm not her. For example, we live in the far SW, and I have a van, so a last minute holiday with the kids would definitely be a camping holiday in the UK, or if I was feeling flush taking the ferry to France. (We are NOT flush this summer because of April's Interrailing excursion, so I'm just hoping for the rain to stop basically).

Also, I personally would never go to the Mediterranean in August- too hot and everything's parched (or burnt 😬). But I'm aware that is just me.

I have taken solo holidays at short notice before, thanks to XP and his flakiness over schedules- I think I pulled my solo Interrailing trip last Easter- just down to the S.of France to go walking in the Alpes Maritimes- together in about 6 weeks.

So, if I was the OP, I would probably try and take the train down to the Loire Valley/ Liguria (somewhere up in the mountains for coolness, but with easy transport access to the sea), just using the Interrail pass as a means to get cheap train tickets, if possible.

But that's just me (hyperfocused travel obsessive).