Harry: [00:00:00] Booking your next summer getaway is meant to be something to look forward to. Scrolling through the holiday websites, looking at pictures of glorious pools and sandy beaches, deciding which room in the apartment has the best view over the coastline, you think you've found a good deal and then the fees start to add up.
The bargain holiday you thought you found is now tens, perhaps hundreds of pounds more expensive. So what can you do to beat the fees and bag a bargain for your next overseas holiday? I'm Harry Kind,
Grace: and I'm Grace Farrell,
Harry: and this is Get Answers, for living your best consumer life.
Grace: When life gives you questions, which Get Answers?
Harry, have you been stung by any hidden fees recently?
Harry: Do you know, I've had a few recently with, uh, hiring cars. And it's something you obviously do a lot on holiday. I have been doing it a lot for Moving House. So I've been renting vans by the hour. I got stung by a fee for returning a car [00:01:00] nine minutes late, which I think was justified refuel it for the company.
Right. And if I'd not refuelled it, I'd have been stung by a 35 fee anyway. So I was a kind of like, damned if I do, damned if I don't situation.
Grace: What was the fee then that they gave you for being nine minutes late?
Harry: 35. What?
Grace: Oh, that's silly.
Harry: And they did the annoying thing of refunding me as a goodwill gesture, which I hate.
I always want to reject a goodwill gesture and say, no, I deserve this. I am entitled to this. How about you? Have you been stung by fees?
Grace: Do you know, I can't think of any off the top of my head, although car hire is always a nightmare. But we have had a few comments this week on social. So we've had one, and these are pretty outrageous.
So this one's from Sue. She says, I stayed in an apartment in Torremolinos and had to pay for a change of clean sheets. Could not believe it. Isn't that outrageous?
Harry: It is. It depends if it's coming in, like, when you're first there. whether you're getting last week's clean sheets or if it's halfway through the break.
Grace: Well, yeah, I mean, I don't think I would expect the sheets to be changed halfway through a holiday, actually, if I [00:02:00] was staying in the self catering. Do some people expect that?
Harry: I don't know, put it in the comments below. I think a lot of people do. A lot of people don't.
Grace: Okay. Then there's another one from Kay.
She says, there was no iron in the room and we couldn't borrow one from reception. Instead, we had to pay for laundry service. I walked out in creased clothes. I'm not surprised, Kay, I would too.
Harry: Yeah, and I always rely on the, one of your hacks actually, Grace, which is showering and keeping the shirt hanging up in the shower to make sure that it gets rid of all these creases.
Grace: Yeah, it really, really does work. Now, shortly we'll be joined by by Chelsea Dickinson. You may well have seen her online or on TV as the cheap holiday expert. She'll be telling us whether or not she succeeded in paying just 100 for an overseas holiday. Is that even possible these days? Stay with us to find out.
But first, Trevor Baker is here. He is a senior researcher in the travel department here at Witch. Hello, Trevor.
Trevor: Hello.
Grace: How are you doing?
Harry: I'm very well, thank you. Now, [00:03:00] Trevor, this is classic witch territory, hidden fees stinging you while you're out on holiday, you're traveling. What are the kind of top ones people need to look out for?
Trevor: Well, I think it depends what sort of holiday you're thinking about, because basically there are two ways to book a holiday. One is to do it all yourself. And the other is to book a package. And if you're doing it all yourself, that's when you basically have to be a walking calculator and spot all the hidden fees that they're going to try and add to your booking.
The classic ones are with the airlines. So, low cost airlines, well, so called low cost airlines will charge you extra, not just to put a suitcase in the hold, but even to take a bag and put it in the overhead locker. They'll also try and charge you to sit next to your travel companion. So these are things that basically when you're looking on Google flights or Skyscanner or even on the websites of Ryanair or EasyJet, you'll see the initial price and you might think, Oh, that's amazing.
So 40 quid, whatever for a flight to Greece. But then the [00:04:00] add ons can be so much more expensive. I mean, for example, earlier this year, we looked at a flight by Wizz Air. And, uh, it was 45 quid each way, just to put a case in the overhead locker. So 90 quid on top of your flight. And they told us that's like more than the average.
Yeah. But the problem is there's no set price. The only way to guarantee you're going to get the best price is basically to do a mock booking. So you kind of go through it, work out what you want to add, and then decide, Okay, well that's going to cost me that much. And then go back to the beginning again and think, well, maybe I'll choose their option where everything is already included and will that be cheaper or not?
Probably not. It's usually cheaper to add everything on as you go through.
Harry: So, are you saying there that actually it's a bit opaque when you're looking at that price, maybe on a comparison website, you're not buying it? actually often able to see what those extra fees are going to be.
Trevor: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think that's the big issue.
I mean, I obviously do this for a living. I look at these prices, but when I'm booking my own holidays, I have to kind of remind myself, when you see, I use Skyscanner quite a [00:05:00] lot, and you see the prices on Skyscanner and you see, say, British Airways is 60 quid more expensive than Ryanair. So you think, okay, Ryanair.
And then you think, oh, no, actually, I need to take a suitcase because we're going for all this time. And then you have to do this calculation, which I'm talking about, and oh no, actually, British Airways works out cheaper on that particular flight, and it's so easy to be kind of We did a survey and we asked people whether they were sat next to their travel companion and whether they paid for seat selection.
And with most airlines that we looked at 90 percent of the time, you don't need to pay for seat selection if all you want is to be sat next to your wife or children or friends or whatever. But with Ryanair and Wizz Air, it was more like that. 50 60 percent of the time. So basically, with Ryanair, you've got to take into account, do I want to sit next to the people I'm booking with?
Maybe you don't, maybe, maybe paying extra for that. You've got to take that into account. And with British Airways, EasyJet, Jet2, generally, you don't need to pay for seat selection, if that's all you [00:06:00] want.
Harry: Which is, fair enough, it's not too big a problem if it's just you and your partner out there. But when there are children involved, that does make the whole thing a bit of a nightmare.
Grace: I was gonna say, are there limits to this? I mean, surely I would be able to sit with my children as a safety thing. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have to pay more to sit with my children.
Trevor: Well, I mean, Ryanair do this thing where they make you pay. So if you're taking children with you, you have to pay extra to sit next to them.
I can't believe that. And they say for safety reasons, because you have to have your children next to you. Some of them, you're not guaranteed to sit next to your children with other airlines. Even with like a five year old, there's no law that says your five year old has to be next to you, which is really surprising.
Harry: I mean, are there other ones beyond the airlines that people should be looking for when it comes to a DIY kind of holiday?
Trevor: I think you also need to take into account any extra fees you might pay at your hotel. Lots of destinations now have tourist taxes or city taxes. Some of these can be really expensive.
So, I mean, I think cities like Paris and Amsterdam are basically saying, we've got enough [00:07:00] tourists, we don't want any more, because they raised the tourist tax so much. I mean, it varies depending if you're going camping or staying in a hostel or staying in a luxury hotel. I think for a four star hotel in Paris, I think it was, eight euros a night or something.
Amsterdam, similar. So you could easily, if you're staying for a week, you'd easily spend over 100 euros.
Harry: Well, obviously there's no way of avoiding a tax, but for those other kind of hidden fees, do you have any kind of hints and tips on how to avoid being surprised by them?
Trevor: The simplest tip is to book a package holiday with a reputable package holiday firm.
So one of the which recommended providers is a good idea. So like Jet2 Holidays or Kuoni or somebody like that, you can have a look on the which website and they have everything included. You shouldn't have any kind of nasty surprises when you get there. You have to be slightly Careful with some sort of less reputable firms with all inclusives, because we've done some research where we found that people book an all inclusive holiday, [00:08:00] they think it's very cheap, and then they get there and there's lots of things they have to buy when they're out there, like your snack by the pool or something you have to pay for, which people don't expect.
Harry: Let me give you a counterpoint argument then, let's say, that for people who want to save a lot of money, is there an argument that by splitting out the fees, charging extra to pick your seat, charging extra to have a lot of baggage, that if you weren't going to use the I think
Trevor: that's a good point. And I think the simplest way to think about it now is that there's no such thing as a low cost airline.
What there is, is there's a low cost traveler. So a low cost traveler is Probably a young person who doesn't have children, so is traveling outside the school holidays, doesn't want to take loads of stuff, just shoves a bag underneath the seat in front of them. And for them, maybe the best option is to book, you know, one of the so called low cost airlines, Ryanair or EasyJet, or one of those.
Whereas if you're somebody who's got a family [00:09:00] and you have to travel in the summer and you're going away for a week or two weeks and you do need to take luggage, you'll quite possibly find that the extra fees that you're going to be paying will be so much that it won't work out any cheaper. It may even be more expensive than, say, British Airways or Jet 2 or another of the kind of like the national carriers.
Harry: Well, we're going to talk to someone now who may as well have low cost traveler written in her passport. We'll be back with Trevor a little bit later on, but now let's hear from somebody who recently tried to go abroad for just 100. Now that's not just flights, that's accommodation, food, everything. That was the plan, but did they succeed?
Grace: And that somebody could only be the fantastic Chelsea Dickinson, long time friend of the show and the messiah of cheap travel hacks. Welcome back Chelsea. Thank you for having me. I love coming back here, always. Now, let's just get straight to the point. Okay. Did you [00:10:00] succeed in holidaying abroad for less than 100?
Yes, I did.
Chelsea: And thank goodness, because it would have fallen a little bit flat, I think, if the video series ended up with me saying I failed.
Harry: Or you'd just, like, not report, like, a muffin that you bought, and just cut that out straight away.
Chelsea: The muffin's gotta
Harry: go, guys. It has to go.
Chelsea: Never
Harry: happened. Can't prove it.
Grace: How did you do it? I mean, can you give us a breakdown of the cost?
Chelsea: Yeah, I can. Um, um, It's really interesting because it's something I've been trying to do for ages. And the fact that I haven't been able to do it kind of proves a bit of the point here that costs have gone up in certain areas. And you'll see from the breakdown, you know, where, where I was spending the most money.
The first bit was transport. I've Well, when was it? Oh, sorry. Have I not even said? I was about to, yeah.
Harry: Oh my goodness. I was wondering if you were keeping it in suspense.
Chelsea: No. So I went to Tirana in Albania. Beautiful. It's been on my list for ages. So it all kind of came together quite nicely. However, I didn't choose it because I wanted to go.
I chose it because it was cheap. And [00:11:00] so in terms of my breakdown of costs, transport and bear in mind, I included everything in that. So even getting to the airport in the UK, which we all know can cost an arm and a leg, getting from the airport in Tirana and also my accommodation, my food, my drink, absolutely everything was included in this.
So for the transports, it came in at 42. 34p and interestingly, my flights came under 20. Actually, I spent more money on transfers than I did on the flights itself.
Harry: And there'll be people listening to this who, like my parents, live in the edge of Wales and they're pretty much isn't an airport in the country and you are spending 50, 60 quid on train tickets before you have even left the country.
Chelsea: Or your, it's your fuel and it's the airport parking, which can cost an absolute fortune. So, I mean, the whole point of this challenge was to highlight how many different costs there are and how you should be thinking through each and every single one before you go on [00:12:00] holiday, because it adds a lot. Up.
So that was transport. Then food and drink. I spent 30 and 20p. I could have done it a bit cheaper, I reckon, actually, but I wanted to treat myself a little bit.
Grace: How long were you there for in total? I was there
Chelsea: for two nights.
Grace: Okay. So this is, this is two days worth of food for that
Chelsea: much? Yeah, exactly. And then speaking of which, my accommodation.
So I stayed in a hostel. That was another area that made this so difficult because I don't know if you've seen, but hostels have got a little bit trendier recent, you know. They are much nicer than they used to be but that means that the price has gone up as well and it's pushed up all hostels in a way.
I knew I had to find something for 15 or under otherwise it wasn't even worth pursuing. So yeah, Albania and Tirana was one of the few places that came up with affordable but nice hostels because the other thing I didn't want to go somewhere and it'd be rubbish. Yeah,
Harry: yeah and I found actually hostels, as you were saying, getting nicer.
I now think that if you're going to spend, say, 40, you're better off [00:13:00] spending it at a hostel than a hotel because you can get such a nice
Chelsea: hostel. Really
Harry: nice. Whereas a nasty hotel is just grim. No, you're so right. And it'll be a clean hostel, there's loads of nice people there. Good internet connection.
Yes. It actually does what it's supposed to do.
Grace: Now, we've been talking about the sort of hidden, unexpected fees that you come across when you're travelling these days. And I suppose that's somewhere where this whole plan could have fallen down. Did that happen to you? So there were some
Chelsea: really interesting hidden costs that I did come across that I was not expecting.
For example, I went for dinner at this amazing traditional Albanian restaurant with music. It was fantastic and the food was really affordable too. And then my bill came at the end of the night and there was a music charge. on it. So there's hidden costs, even in things that you weren't even thinking about.
Now, fair due to them, the music charge was 62 pence. And I went, I can afford that. And you deserve that [00:14:00] 62p. But that can happen. You may have been in bars where they have a cover charge, and they've got a bit of live music on. And it's those things that aren't often on menus, and that can trip you up a little bit.
Harry: For those who listen to the the Witch Shorts podcast, they've probably already heard this, but this week we had an article on the kind of weird things you need to know about eating abroad and how different, you know, different countries have different charges, different kind of cultures around it and those kind of cover charges where you'll go to Italy and there'll be a basket of bread with a napkin over it where you're worried, can I eat these free sardines in Portugal?
Are they actually free? It's worth having a listen to that because, um, It can stop you from getting surprised by those charges.
Grace: Now, I couldn't help noticing in one of your videos, you almost had a complete emergency on the way back with a fee. Can you tell us what happened?
Chelsea: Yes. So, um, I like to leave check in for Reiner until quite late, because [00:15:00] you may have played it yourself, check in chicken, where you wait for as long as possible, because you know they're doling out the rubbish seats first, and what's left, the nice extra legroom or the seats up front.
So I was playing check in chicken, and We're talking I think checking closed three hours before online and I was at the like 30 minutes before that moment I checked in I was already on my way to the airport going to get the bus and it said you must print your boarding pass and I went No, because one, I had hardly any money left of my budget.
I think it was like 50 P left. So I was like, one, can I find somewhere to print it? And are they going to charge me more than 50 P to do so? And two, if I cannot and have to print it at the airport, we all know that there are often hidden fees. free printing. Your boarding pass, receipt with Ryanair, they charge either 20 or 20.
And Wizz Air were so vague on their website about whether they would or not that I was like, [00:16:00] well, I'm not sure. But ultimately I got to the airport and I was a bit like, come on, please let me print this for free. But it came down to the fact that Tirana has a bit of a quirk, which is that they do not accept any.
digital boarding passes. So many people said to me, Oh, just put it on your phone. It would have worked. No, it wouldn't. It does not work in Tehran. It simply doesn't. But because of that, even the low cost airlines have to print your boarding pass for free. And I imagine the reason why Wizz Air were not explicit or Ryanair when I checked theirs as well, it's quite simply, they want as many people as possible to print it at home.
So there's not big queues.
Grace: Now, Chelsea, I cannot let us move on to the next question without just explaining why you do leave it to the last minute to check in. Okay, so it's called check in
Chelsea: chicken. It's a fun game I like to play. Lots of other people like to play it as well. [00:17:00] Where simply when you're checking in for Whizzer or Ryanair and you have decided to skip.
the option to buy a seat, you instead get allocated it when you check in. And the thing is, these low cost airlines, they make a lot of money by putting people in the rubbish seats, and then people going, I'm not sitting there, I'm going to move. And when I talk about rubbish seats, I'm talking about the middle seat, perhaps in the middle of the plane, so you're the last one to get off all these kinds of things.
And what you will often see happening as you get keep checking on what's available throughout the day as you get closer to your checking point is that the seats left are the expensive ones. Your upfront seats, your extra legroom seats, all of them are the ones still there. So it's called checking chicken because you're waiting, you are keep refreshing it until there's only the good seats left.
And that's when you check in and you normally do get allocated one of them. However, there is a massive caveat with that, in that airlines do overbook. [00:18:00] They're And if you leave it too late, you could be one of the people who doesn't get allocated a seat. Do you think there's an optimum time? I think it tends to be around six hours before.
That's from my own personal experience. I rarely leave it too late. As late as I did for Tirana, the flight wasn't that booked up. I didn't get a particularly great seat by doing it. It only really works when it's almost booked to capacity, but not quite, which actually, if you look at load factors of airplanes is what they tend to kind of average out.
About 85%.
Grace: Now, I guess as the cheap holiday expert, these kinds of extra fees, it kind of gives you an opportunity to look for ways to really save money wherever possible. Can you tell us how you kind of navigate this? Because you know, these days, you'll be charged for having a bag in the overhead locker for selecting a seat, as we've just said, charges at hotels, that kind of thing.
Can you just give us some advice [00:19:00] around how you navigate it and how you
Chelsea: So the luggage is a really great thing to bring up here because you can immediately strip out any potential hidden costs by packing light and just going with a backpack. I'm such a fan of Only Travelling Light for this reason, because it's not just light.
Not simply because it's the cheapest option, but it takes away so many potential issues. Is it the right size? Is it overweight? All these kind of things. So write a list. Are you going to use it genuinely? Are you going to wear every single outfit that you've packed? Don't take 17 pairs of pants. You don't need them.
You're going to be fine.
Harry: And guess what? They sell pants everywhere in the world. Yes. There's not a country you're going to where you're like, sorry, we don't sell pants here.
Chelsea: Yeah, I kind of tried to prove it whilst I was in Tirana, actually, I ended up not filming it because funnily enough doing a challenge on 100 took up quite a lot of my time already, but I actually did the entire trip in a Uniqlo bag, you know, [00:20:00] the viral ones that go across your body, they're like a moon shape.
Yeah. Yeah, I did the whole thing in that, I did take my backpack. Hang on, you did, that was your only bag that you took. The reason why it will not become a video. yet is because I took a backpack with me because I wanted to take some photos. So I took a camera with me and my laptop because I was there working.
But in terms of my personal clothes, my toiletries, everything I needed, I packed it into a Uniqlo.
Grace: If you don't know what we're talking about, go on to Chelsea's Instagram, Cheap Holiday Expert. Have a look at the bag that she's talking about. It is not big. I mean, this is, I would say it's like a handbag.
It's a cross body handbag. Yeah. This, that's amazing.
Harry: Yeah, I can do one better in that I once did a whole week's holiday wear in a jacket pocket. Yes. So one of those crazy airline, as many kind of pockets as like a fisherman's jacket. And I wore that onto the plane and so had with me a suitcase which was empty, just in case.
[00:21:00] And I got away with it. I looked incredibly suspect. I don't know how I didn't have a hundred dogs after me. But um, yeah, I got it all in there and it's worth looking into because pockets.
Chelsea: Okay. This is our new series, Harry. Yes. Me and you, we'll just try and do like holidays with this. Smallest possible bag ever just to prove a point
Harry: just sat there on the plane with a little fanny pack and nothing else We're fine
Chelsea: Do you know I was playing on the fact that people often say as long as you've got your passport and your wallet You're fine, and it's true.
It's
Harry: true. Everything's on your phone
Grace: Now I do think one of the main things that enabled you to have this super cheap holiday was of course the destination, Tirana in Albania. I would hazard a guess that quite a few people listening wouldn't consider it as a holiday destination but you obviously had a fantastic time.
Yeah I loved it. Can you think of any other destinations sort of similar to that that are a real bargain that people might not have heard of?
Chelsea: So a great place to start is Poland and the reason for that is that we have [00:22:00] quite a lot of Polish people of Polish descent in the UK and therefore we have a lot of airlines flying to Poland to several cities from all over the UK.
So it's really good because it's it works for people all over the UK and not just in London. I know deals can often be quite London centric. So that is definitely worth looking into. Also for the fact that Poland has so many good cities. You know, obviously, you've got the capital Warsaw, but I'd say like Krakow, Wroclaw, which is the one that's spelt like it's Wroclaw, Gdansk, another one like, They are all such great city breaks.
They've got culture, they've got history. The architecture is really, really interesting and they're affordable as well. So that would be my go to. And actually, Spain is still incredibly affordable if you are not going. To the big tourist cities. I did a holiday a couple of years ago up in the hills of Andalusia and it was [00:23:00] gorgeous.
We're in this tiny little village called El Gastor where you would go to the local bars and they would actually bring out a pint glass when I ordered a gin and tonic. They did not stop for him. They were the biggest servings of gin and tonic I have ever had in my life. And it was four euros, four euros.
And that was just the price there. So it's all about getting off the beaten track a little bit and actually going where the locals go, you will find good prices even in popular countries.
Grace: What would you say is the biggest lesson you learned during this trip?
Chelsea: So I went into it to prove a point that holidays don't have to be so expensive, but also to highlight the fact that there are so many potential hidden costs that you have to think about when you are booking a cheap holiday.
And, um, I'm glad that I proved that you can do it for a hundred pound if you really sit and wait for those cheap flights to come through that work. However, it did really highlight to me how it's really hard to do a [00:24:00] cheap trip when you don't have a cushion of money. If something is to go wrong. So on my way out, I booked a National Express coach and it was overbooked.
I couldn't get on it. I was not allowed on the bus and I was already cutting it fine. And they said to me, Oh, you could just book a taxi and claim it back later. And I said, I cannot. So I ended up having to wait for the next coach to come and I nearly didn't get on the second one either. Unfortunately, I did, but it made it really difficult.
I had to absolutely peg it to the check in. I nearly missed my flight. And it's stuff like that that really does make you realize why it's so difficult for people on a budget to get away because it's that kind of stuff that is so simple to fix when you have the luxury of money. Cancellation delays and things like that.
They are actually the real pinnacle of hidden costs that you cannot really navigate around. You may be able [00:25:00] to claim it back on your insurance, but ultimately that's going to be an upfront cost that you will have to deal with. I just got super lucky, I think, for my 100 holiday.
Grace: I guess I'd look at it in a similar way maybe to when you're getting building works and you factor in an extra percentage of the cost because you know that you are going to run into things that were unforeseen.
Yeah. I suppose it's the same with travelling.
Chelsea: You are 100 percent right and actually perhaps we should all go forward thinking about these cheap trips and factoring in a, I don't know, a 20 percent like just in case fund for when things hopefully not go awry.
Grace: Well Chelsea, as always, it has been so fantastic to have you on the show.
Where can people find you?
Chelsea: I like to say to people just go onto a social media platform and type the word cheap and hopefully my face will pop up, but it's cheap holiday expert on most platforms.
Grace: Well, do you know what? We'll be back with Trevor very shortly. He's going to reveal some of the best value destinations that we found in the which survey.
So definitely [00:26:00] don't go away.
Harry: You're listening to Get Answers. Our next episode will reveal the everyday products that Which Research has proved you should never pay full price for. If you want to get involved in the conversation, or if you have any consumer questions you'd like us to answer, or if you'd like to suggest something for us to cover here on Get Answers, email us at podcasts at which.
co. uk.
Grace: You can also get in touch with us on social media. We're at which UK
Harry: and if you're enjoying the podcast Please do leave us a review wherever you're listening now We're still joined by Trevor Baker senior researcher and writer here at which and obviously summer holiday season. It's upon us In the spirit of saving money, what destination would you recommend this year that won't break the bank?
Trevor: Well, starting with the UK, I mean, the good news is that in our survey, when we did a survey of the best UK city breaks, I think there was 23 that got 4 stars out of 5 for value for money. Typically, as you'd expect, the [00:27:00] best value for money places tend to be in the North. Liverpool was really good, York, Chester.
The place that we found was the best value for money is Wells, which is one of England's smallest cities down in Somerset. Barely counts as a city break, does it? It's officially a city because it has a cathedral. I think it's the second smallest city in the UK after the City of London. It got four stars for value for money.
And also we looked at data for um, hotel prices. The price for an average three or four star hotel was a lot less than in other cities. So
Harry: yeah, really good value. What about if we're looking further afield now, where are the kind of best value international destinations?
Trevor: At the moment, when we, we looked in the spring, the best value package holidays for the summer were the Greek islands.
So, um, an island called Kalymnos did really well for value for money, but what the, the, Price of a package was much lower than other places we looked at. Lefkada, which is a really beautiful island, another Greek island, was also much cheaper than you'd [00:28:00] expect.
Grace: Why is that? Are these kind of lesser known?
Are they a bit off the beaten track? Are they hard to get to?
Trevor: Yeah, they are. So, um, they do much better in our surveys. They're much more popular. People like them a lot more. But they're also cheaper because they're not as kind of overcrowded, not as popular as, say, Mykonos. or Santorini, those are kind of more expensive.
The better known places tend to be more expensive. And also, according to our survey results, not as nice. So, um, you're better off going to these kind of quieter islands.
Grace: And what do your survey results look at?
Trevor: They look at all sorts of things. They look at the scenery, how crowded it is, food and drink, value for money.
And what about Spain? The best value place to go in Spain for a package holiday we found was to Costa Brava. So that's the coast which is kind of, um, near Barcelona, basically, north, to the north of Barcelona. And that works out, yeah, quite a bit cheaper than the Costa del Sol or the Costa Blanca. And also, um, As far as I'm concerned, it has better weather, and by better I mean cooler, obviously, because yeah, it's still going to be sunny, [00:29:00] but it's not as hot as Malaga or Alicante further south.
Grace: Do you know, I was reading the results of one of these surveys and I was quite surprised to see that the Amalfi coast in Italy is actually on the cheaper end, is that right?
Trevor: Yeah, we were surprised by that as well, and I think the reason is because although there are places on the Amalfi Coast which are really expensive, like Positano, there's a wide variety of accommodation there, so you can find self catering, you can find cheaper bed and breakfast places.
So yeah, Amalfi's actually turns out cheaper than other places that you might not expect, like the south of France. So yeah, Amalfi's a really good choice, although it does get very crowded in the summer, so worth maybe considering if you can leave it till after the summer break.
Grace: Yeah. I think another interesting result I saw was about the cheapest all inclusive holidays.
I think it was Tenerife that came out top and Dalaman was a bit further down. And I would just associate Turkey with being cheaper than, say, Tenerife, but I guess that that wasn't the case.
Trevor: Yeah, I think the reason there again is because in Tenerife there's such a [00:30:00] high volume of cheaper accommodation, where Dalaman has a lot of kind of lovely luxury hotels, so it might be a bit more expensive.
But Tenerife turns out I think just because of the sheer popularity with British travellers, that there's a lot of competition and therefore the prices are very reasonable.
Grace: And I also saw that Tenerife had come top in the survey for best Canary Islands.
Trevor: Yeah, um, Tenerife is, I think, would surprise people who've never been there before.
It's basically an island of two halves. The south is really built up, very cheap, loads of accommodation. But the north is beautiful, and there's so many different places to go. It's a bit wilder, it's a bit, kind of, more a place to go as an independent traveller and see, kind of, the real island and not just a, kind of, fly and flop sort of holiday.
Harry: Have you got any holiday plans this summer, Trevor?
Trevor: I take very cheap holidays, which is, I made the sensible decision to marry a Spanish person, which is a good travel tip, and therefore I'm going to stay with my in laws in Alicante.
Harry: Oh, very good. That is a nice, cheap way to travel. Well, thank [00:31:00] you so much for joining us, Trevor.
We'll see you again soon. Thank you.
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Grace: And don't forget, next up, we'll be revealing the everyday products you should never pay full price for. We're talking toothpaste, razors, and on the subject of holidays, sunscreen.
Harry: Today's Get Answers was presented by [00:32:00] me, Harry Kind, alongside Grace Farrell, produced by James Rowe and Adrian Bradley, recorded by Robb Lily Jones, and edited by Eric Breer.
And thanks again to our wonderful guests, Trevor Baker and Chelsea Dickinson. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.
Grace: Bye. Bye.