Punch and foodie
TOP chefs will be sharing secrets at the Bury St Edmunds Food and Drink Festival on Bank Holiday Monday. James Tanner and Paul Rankin will join local chefs from the Suffolk cathedral town at the free family event. There will be cooking demos, stalls, a farmers’ market, Punch and Judy shows and fairground rides. See ourburystedmunds.com. SEPTEMBER is a brilliant time to travel. School is back, prices drop, and the sun is still warm. So grab a late summer deal while you can.
Big deal Total package for less
The big tour operators drop their resort holiday prices in September but you have a six-week window before they reduce flights too. That is when availability becomes seriously limited and prices shoot up again.
Have a look at the last-minute pages for the likes of Tui/thomson, Thomas Cook and Balkan Holidays. With Tui, you can get a week half-board in the deluxe Sensimar Atlantica Imperial resort on the Greek island of Rhodes for £582, compared with £975 in August. Check out tui.co.uk.
With Thomas Cook, bag an all-inclusive week at the four-star Smartline Marina in Spain’s Menorca for £543 in September, down from £774 in August. See thomascook.com.
Bulgaria specialist Balkan Holidays cuts its price on a week in the three-star Hotel Korona in Sunny Beach from £416 to £289 as soon as September arrives. See balkanholidays.co.uk.
All include flights. If you hang on until late September or early October, they all drop again.
In tents joy Calmer camping
No kids means instant karma at campsites – and prices plunge.
A mobile home that sleeps six at the Marina d’erba Rossa site on the French island of Corsica, which is only a step away from its own sandy beach, costs from £162pp for seven nights from September 23. That is down from £231 but it does not include flights. See alfresco-holidays.com.
Even more extreme price shifts are found on the mainland, with a three-bedroom mobile home in the Camping Oasis site near Le Barcares, near Perpignan, costing £224, not including flights, in September, compared to £1,049 at the height of the season.
The Pyrenees are within sight, the Med is barely a mile away and Le Barcares is home to bars and restaurants as well as fish and crafts markets. See canvasholidays.co.uk.
Longhaul fall Florida for half price
Family-friendly destinations such as Orlando, with all its theme parks and beach destinations, cut their prices when school goes back.
Maingate Lakeside Resort in Kissimmee is two miles from Walt Disney World and minutes from Seaworld, Universal Studios, Legoland and Lake Buena Vista.
A week is £743pp, flight included, room only, in August, but drops to £334 in September. See travelsupermarket.com.
Deals like this via discount websites can be elusive but even operators such as Virgin Holidays have obscene offers. A week self-catering, with hire car, in the Lake Buena Vista Village Resort costs from £1,425pp including flights in August but drops to £628 in September. It is a five-minute drive from Disney too. See virginholidays.co.uk.
Island idyll Med for Mum and Dad
The modest-sized, family-run resorts on the islands of the Mediterranean can be good value even in the busiest times, provided you don’t insist on having a cocktail bar and spa right at your fingertips.
Olympic Holidays, a specialist in this kind of Boat charter is a very weather-dependent form of travel, so you are taking a risk with late season hire.
But Ireland’s lough-connecting River Shannon is lined with historic towns and the ruins of castles and monasteries, not to mention watering holes for a certain dark-coloured stout beginning with the letter G.
Here a big boat like the Vision 3, which sleeps