Travelling around Britain isn’t always cheap. But there are ways you can keep the cost down
Holidays on home soil are likely to be the first we can take this year. Alas, travelling around Britain isn’t always cheap. But there are ways you can keep the cost down.
You can legally wild camp in Scotland and Dartmoor, or stay in a mountain bothy for free (when covid rules allow; mountainbothies.org.uk). And then there’s camping, of course: last year, on a three-day walk from my front door, I paid £7.50 a night, cooked couscous on my stove and spent a fiver on the bus back home. That might not be everyone’s idea of a bargain – some might prefer, say, access to a shower – but I felt I got a lot of experience for my money. And that’s perhaps the way to judge a British break; not on cost, but on value.
From dolphins to rewilding: 11 environment-friendly holidays for 2021 Jane Dunford
Rewilding centres
The idea of rewilding – moving away from current forestry and agricultural techniques and allowing nature to thrive – is gaining ground.
One exciting new project is Wild Ken Hill in north Norfolk, where alongside pioneering regenerative farming and traditional conservation practices, a 400-hectare (1,000-acre) area is being returned to the wild, with the reintroduction of beavers, Exmoor ponies and old farm breeds like red poll cattle and Tamworth pigs. Visitors can already access Wild Ken Hill via public footpaths, but from April (hopefully) there will be a choice of 15 guided tours on offer (from £30), ranging from introductions to rewilding to nature-by-night walks and butterfly-spotting hunts. There are plans to allow camping later this year and for a glampsite to be up and running by 2022 (the Rose and Crown in Snettisham is a good base in the meantime,
But to Julian Phillips its ‘Glorious’. So much so that the coach driver with West Midlands-based Phillips International Travel has written a book about it – split into 31 sections to match its 31 junctions, and full of his own pictures. Julian used his time on furlough last year to pen his ode to motorway glory ‘The Glorious M5’ based on the commentaries he gives passengers about the sights, unusual facts, historical places of interest and top attractions along the route. It’s available in all good book stores. But if you want a flavour of what to expect and why he thinks the M5 is so great, Julian has helped devise a fun quiz for our readers.
FOR most of us the M5 is an unexceptional bit of motorway that you use to get from A to B - but to Bewdley coach driver Julian Phillips, it s glorious . Julian admires the M5 so much that the West Midlands-based Phillips International Travel coach driver has written a book about it. The book is split into 31 sections to match its 31 junctions and full of Julian s own pictures. Julian used his time on furlough last year to pen his ode to motorway glory, The Glorious M5, based on the commentaries he gives passengers about the sights, unusual facts, historical places of interest and top attractions along the route.