Where do you stay when you visit the UK?

[alfabetty]

Do you stay in the spare rooms of friends/parents? Or hire a house, stay in a hotel....? And do you hire a car?

Looking for some inspiration. We are a long-haul flight away so it's not a weekend trip, and I don't fancy dragging 2 DCs around to various friends and rellies, but equally, we can't really land on one household for a fortnight or more.

We usually hire a car and drive round the country staying with various friends and family. However, one especially of our DCs gets very overstimulated and tired with this.
I really love the idea of hiring a house for a week and asking friends to come and stay with us for a couple of days each, but I'm not sure if this would work as most people work obviously and may not want to take time off.

Last trip we did we spent some time at friends houses, some time in a hotel, and a quiet bit in the middle with my parents.
It's not easy (or cheap)!

I'm back in the UK now, but when we were overseas I used to bring the DCs back for a month or more in the summer. I used my parents' house as a base, so would be there for a few nights, then off somewhere else for a few, back again etc. I have also done the thing of renting a big house somewhere holidayish and getting as many of the family as possible to come for a few days or a week at a time, but that gets very expensive in the summer (need a very big house) and depends on having family within easy travelling distance. I've also rented a serviced apartment in London once or twice, so as not to use anyone as a hotel while catching up with lots of people in the space of a few days.

TBH I don't think there is an ideal solution, unless you have family with plenty of space and in a central location with good transport links. There is always going to be a lot of travelling around and disruption to routines which is not great for the DCs - by the end of every summer, they used to come down with ear infections, tonsillitis or DS usually got a non-specific viral thing that would give him fluctuating temperatures and leave him feeling completely wiped out.

But you can't not do it if that's the only chance to see people... We were living thousands of miles away for 12 years so there was no chance of most of the family coming to see us.

We also do a similar to mentioned above. We use my Mum's as a base and then go and visit people from there usually. Or if we want to see people in the South, we fly into London, visit them, then drive home to the North. But it is exhausting. And everyone wants you to visit them and can't understand it if you can't make it.

I think hiring somewhere is the best idea. If people want to see you then let them come to you. If you have your own base it will be much simpler.

It's interesting what you say exexpat about your DCs becoming ill. We have just done a month of holidaying, visitung people in 3 different countries and my 11 month old is now wiped out. We've been to the dr's 3 times this week and she has exactly as you describe above, a non-specific viral thing where we can't keep her temp. down. I think we've overdone it and now I feel terrible.

So in conclusion OP, hire a house and enjoy your trip home!

Thank you. We are looking at serviced appts in London actually, as a house in a holiday area probably won't work as the UK schools are still in term time whenever we will be going back.

Any recommendations for family-friendly appts exexpat?

Thanks for your advice. Seems I'm not missing a trick, it is just difficult to work out!

We have a long school holiday where we are so we are debating how long I go back to the UK for - DH will do a flying visit, I will do 2 weeks, considering longer, but put off by the issue of where to stay.

Serviced apartments in London - it's been a while since I used one, so I don't really have any up to date recommendations - they are just things I found through internet searches. The last one, two or three years ago, was a modern one near Aldgate east which was OK but not a hugely convenient location and a bit noisy (roads/pubs). Before that was somewhere round South Ken/Earls Court which was rather shabby. I think there have been a lot of developments in the last few years. Maybe try putting the question on the travel board and see if anyone has any more recent experience?

We either use spare rooms or rent a house (this year it will be a big family holiday in Italy rather than the UK and half the family is flying out to see us there). We have also done a house swap (stayed in Copenhagen and again family came out to spend a week with us). Worked really well (especially with kids who wanted more space and to eat pasta at 5pm), we got a 4 bed house for free and loads of "insider" tips of what to do / see www.homeexchange.com

We hire a car and drive round staying with family and friends, its great to see everyone, but after 3 weeks of it I am knackered as are the kids and I just want to be back home! This christmas we stayed at 7 different places over 21 days..!

One year we also borrowed a house and everyone came to us, but that was really hard work too as then you are constantly entertaining!

I think the ideal would be to do half and half, ie travel around and then have a house for people to come to you.

And I am going to look into doing a house swap next year, will work out cheaper?

House swaps are free!!! Sometimes you get to swap a car too... Check out homeexchange.com - you have to pay to register your home and it takes a while to get the photos on and write about your place but we're getting 5 or 6 exchange offers on our two houses every week at the moment, which makes for lovely daydreams!!!

We sometimes ask around friends to see if anyone is away on holiday while we're around and house sit for them - but I'm always paranoid about the DCs breaking things and spend way too much time cleaning at the end. We did it for three months one year and that was way too long. Serviced apartments sound like a good idea but expensive?

am doing serviced apartment in london this time.
can't face dragging kids around.
My experience is unless am steady at my mum's or MIL they do get terribly tired and vaguely ill. Added to the shock of jetlag, no thank you.

I looked at fraser hospitality, good locations near hyde park

That is precisely why we have kept our UK house. With 4 kids there is no way we could stay with family. Several friends have sold or rented out their homes and I think many now regret it.

One friend went back to the UK for a few weeks last month and said it was torture having to split their time exactly between both sets of parents. she has said next time she will get a serviced apartment which apparently works out a lot cheaper than hotels.

House sit sounds like a good idea or maybe a house swop. I did it once though and wouldn't do it again.

house swap? God help!

If you plan to stay in London, I can recommend Citadines, especially the ones near the National Science Museum and also the Holborn Citadines. Small but very functional and great locations and very affordable.