I'm a single mum-of-4 & found a 5-night caravan holiday for £22 – we had ‘private beach' access & saw seals for free
Charlene Woracker, who has four children, revealed how she found a dream caravan holiday in St Ives for the bargain price.
5
5
On her @mummybudgets account, she shared how the trick included her kids playing on a 'private beach', seeing seals and body boarding.
She booked a Haven trip during half term which set her back £111, and despite the six-hour drive, it was 'absolutely worth it' when they arrived.
Upon arrival, they set off to eat the famous Cornish pasties and explored the gorgeous local town.
She shared how her kids had loved exploring a beautiful little church as part of their free sightseeing day.
Charlene then took her kids to the beach which was 'completely empty' and felt like they were abroad.
The mum added: 'It was just us there on our own most of the time. It was like having a private beach.'
She pointed out this was ideal for her family as her kids 'struggle with crowds.'
Then it was time to see some very furry local residents - a population of seals.
Charlene shared: 'The kids really wanted to see the seals, a local told us how we could see them for free in their natural habitat.
'It was only a 15 minute walk up the cliffs and was such an amazing moment when we got to the top.'
Hidden gem Scots caravan park with luxury hot tubs that's just five steps from the beach
The mum then took her brood to visit Land's End, and said that although there was a mini amusement park there, they loved all the free activities nearby.
The only thing she paid for was the Tate Modern, but loved seeing the local St Ives art.
Charlene said she loved her bargain trip, and concluded: 'This trip made me appreciate how beautiful the uk is. Cornwall is definitely a hidden gem.
'The van was £111, food shop was £80 and extra expenses £60 so in total for all of us it was £250 going on holiday doesn't have to cost a fortune.'
5
5
5
CHARLENE'S MONEY TIP
Many people were hugely impressed with her purse-friendly family trip, with her video racking up over 1,000 likes.
One said: 'The price you paid is such a steal, I need to do my homework more when booking our caravan holidays.'
Charlene advised: 'I find it cheaper to book closer to the date you're going away.
"I always check prices they are always changing so just look out.'
Another added: 'This sounds like a dream! What a lovely few days away!'
Why caravan holidays are so underrated
CARAVAN park holidays are a British staple.
And with the cost of living crisis wreaking havoc on Britain's purses, more of us are turning to them for an affordable break.
Josie O'Brien, Senior Digital Writer on Fabulous, weighs in on why she thinks caravan holidays are seriously underrated...
WHEN I was a child, my mum used to collect the £9.50 holiday vouchers in The Sun.
She'd use them to book a couple of nights away at a caravan park during the school holidays.
As an adult, I fully appreciate the convenience of a humble caravan holiday.
No faffing about with passports, no luggage limits and no bog-standard hotel breakfast of stale toast and grey eggs.
I still love caravan holidays as an adult.
In a world of doing everything for the 'gram, a caravan park brings you back to basics.
There's no obligation to get dressed up, no stress to fit a million picturesque excursions in one week and I don't find myself flustered in tourist hot spots like abroad.
I love going to coastal caravan parks and strolling along the beach parade.
My highlight is always fresh mussels, ice-creams and classic pubs to grab an afternoon tipple in.
And then, of course, there's the cost.
Staying in a caravan is definitely way cheaper than my international trips.
With no expensive hotel bills and the ability to cook my own meals, I'm spending hundreds less than I would abroad.
I've had some of my best and most relaxing holidays in caravans. Maybe I'll buy my own one day.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Storm Floris: 90mph winds trigger air, rail and sea chaos
Disruption from Storm Floris will continue into Tuesday, passengers have been warned after wind gusts of up to 82 mph brought down trees and power lines across Scotland and Ireland, triggering transport chaos for trains, flights and ferries. More than 22,500 homes were without power, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks said, with 10,000 more affected in Ireland – mostly in Co Donegal and Co Roscommon. Festivals in Edinburgh were also been disrupted, with the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo among the events cancelled, while the delivery of exam results to some island communities was delayed according to the Scottish Qualifications Authority. The Met Office confirmed wind gusts of up to 79mph as far apart as Kinloss, east of Inverness, and the island of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, with 82mph recorded at Wick in Caithness. Transport was paralysed across much of northern Britain. Network Rail closed all rail lines north of the Central Belt from midday, while a number of roads have been blocked. Disruption will continue into Tuesday. Ross Moran, Network Rail Scotland route director, said: 'Storm Floris has caused significant disruption to Scotland's railway, with wind speeds of up to 90mph, unprecedented for a summer storm. 'Our teams will work through the night, but this work will continue into Tuesday morning. We'll use two helicopters to assist engineers on the ground. We're grateful to passengers for their patience whilst we do this.' Earlier, the train operator had appealed to property owners to secure 'tents, trampolines or furniture' to prevent them being blown on to railway tracks. Anglo-Scottish rail travel was nigh-impossible on the East Coast and West Coast main lines. LNER and Lumo warned passengers not to attempt to travel north of Newcastle, while Avanti West Coast advised travellers not to venture north of Preston. The Caledonian Sleeper serving Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William is cancelled overnight on Monday. Train operators will accept passengers' tickets dated Monday on Tuesday, and in some cases Wednesday. Travellers were able to reach or leave Scotland by air for some of the day, but high winds at the northern airports of Aberdeen and Inverness caused two flights to turn back to their starting points. Both easyJet from Luton to Inverness and KLM from Amsterdam to Aberdeen abandoned their landings and flew back, with passengers enduring 900-mile 'flights to nowhere'. By 6pm the aviation data analyst, Cirium, had calculated more than 150 flights were cancelled: 79 departures and 74 arrivals. Most served northern Scotland and Northern Ireland. Aberdeen was worst affected with 29 cancellations, while Belfast City experienced 21 grounded flights. A number of campervans have been blown over on the A87 road, which leads to Portree on the Isle of Skye. Police Scotland said: "We have received multiple reports of campervans being blown over on the A87 between Broadford and Portree due to high winds caused by Storm Floris. "We are advising motorists not to travel on the Bealach na Ba road and anyone with campervans should remain parked in sheltered areas until the wind speed reduces." Elsewhere, some roads in Scotland and northern England were blocked by fallen trees. The vast majority of ferries serving western Scotland were cancelled. Caledonian MacBrayne warned people planning to sail on Tuesday: 'Due to forecast adverse weather, sailings will be liable to disruption or cancellation at short notice. Northlink, which serves Orkney and Shetland from mainland Scotland, warns of the possibility of disruption 'through to Wednesday 6 August'. Storm Floris is the sixth named storm of the 2024-25 naming season, which runs from early September to late August. January's Storm Eowyn was the most recent.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
I was slapped an £18 Clean Air Zone fine then wasted FIVE months and £100s fighting the tickets... council is to blame
On the face of it, an innocuous work trip to Bristol offers the chance to get out of the office and take in a new part of the country with a few colleagues. But, for Colin Griffiths, what promised to be an enticing two-day visit to the West Country turned into a five-month ordeal as a battle over a pair of Clean Air Zone fines prompted sleepless nights, a ruined holiday and a spiralling bill on the company card. The 56-year-old, from Bedford, was initially handed a reduced penalty of £18 but, despite paying it immediately, saw it increase more than 10-fold to £267 after the council claimed he had not coughed up the cash. In reality, it was the local authority that had been kicking its heels, taking weeks at a time to respond to Mr Griffiths's appeals and hiking the fines with no apparent rhyme or reason. The beleaguered employee eventually paid the heavily inflated amount just to put the nightmare behind him, but it left a distinctly sour taste in his mouth. He told the Daily Mail that he should not even have been fined in the first place. 'I didn't see any any notices whatsoever,' he said. 'Absolutely none. 'My friend, subsequently, said, "yeah, they're an absolute nightmare, their signs are not obvious at all."' A month after his two-night stay in the city in early October 2024, Mr Griffiths was told by the company's accountant that he had received two fines for breaching a Clean Air Zone in the Green Party-run city. The policy was introduced in November 2022 and applies to all vehicles except a limited number of petrol-powered vehicles released since 2006; one type of diesel vehicles released since the end of 2015; fully electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles; Energy Saving Trust's Clean Vehicle Retrofit Accreditation Scheme vehicles; and motorbikes. It is one of seven such zones in England, with London boasting a similar but separate Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez). But Mr Griffiths was none the wiser about the scheme, which meant his car had been slapped with a £9 daily charge, boosted to £69 each thanks to a supposed delay in paying despite the council not contacting him for four weeks. He appealed both of them - a decision that would prompt months of misery and a penalty which would soon spiral out of control. It took the council a further four weeks to respond to his correspondence, at which point it said he could be let off with a £9 fine for the Sunday offence, with seemingly no news regarding the Saturday one. Mr Griffiths claims he paid this straight away, through the link and code provided, and the money left his account, heralding what he thought was the end of an already frustrating ordeal. He should be so lucky. In January, Bristol City Council revisited the saga and told him he had not paid the fine after all and that he had supposedly ignored letters of reminder over the festive period. An investigation later found that he had paid the sum to Bath Council instead, although Mr Griffiths is insistent he used the link and reference code provided by Bristol. The local authority also finally got back to Mr Griffiths about the Saturday penalty and said that this was also late, meaning he owed £129 for this one alone. All this, despite it being the first correspondence he had had regarding the Saturday fine since he appealed it back in November. 'They just kept putting on more and more fines and fees,' he said. Nonetheless, he dug into his pockets to pay the penalty and end the saga once and for all. But it was still far from over. In February, Bristol revisited the Sunday penalty, claiming he had not paid it in December when he said he had. It turned out the fine somehow went to Bath Council despite Mr Griffiths using the link and code provided by Bristol in their email. The upshot was a rehiking of the already hiked penalty, the £120 added onto the original £9 would be shooting up to £180, creating a mega Clean Air fine of £189. Bristol also threatened the increasingly stressed Mr Griffiths with a court appearance. 'I'd been on holiday, and I was getting really stressed about this because their senior manager just wasn't interested in communicating with me anymore,' he said. 'So on that basis, [they said] "tough, it's going to go to a debt recovery agency, so we'll see you in court." 'I actually can't be dealing with this - it's a lot of money, but I don't need the aggravation. It's ruining my holiday. I'm having sleepless nights.' He gave in - and paid the eye-watering £189 figure Bristol had concocted, meaning he had now spent £267 on the two fines, including the £9 December payment and the £69 January transfer. This was painful for Mr Griffiths, who insists he did everything right and any delays were caused by the council's own tardiness. 'I did everything that they asked,' he said. 'I dealt with everything in a timely fashion as soon as I received it and paid them straight away, and even chased them. 'It's upsetting, and I like to do the right thing by people. And I was on holiday and getting these emails, I'm like, "I don't need this aggravation and worrying about it", especially as it's a company car, not mine, and I'm worried. 'My boss knows I wouldn't have abused his hospitality, but it was very stressful, it really was. 'Absolutely [the fact it was company car made it more stressful]. I just felt totally pressured into paying it. 'I paid it and I had to bite the bullet and walk away. I cannot emphasise the stress it put me under.' Will it make him think twice about visiting the Green-run city again? 'Definitely. My friend's wife said you can't obviously see the signs for the Ulez - they don't make it obvious at all,' he said. 'It's a money-making scheme.' For Mr Griffiths, the time for apologies is over and only a refund could make him feel better about his Clean Air Zone nightmare. He added: 'I would love my money back. Not expecting a penny out of them though. It was outrageous. 'I want my money back. Not an apology. 'I can't see compensation happening, but 100 per cent (think I'm entitled to it). They're keyboard warriors - or bullies rather.'
The Sun
3 hours ago
- The Sun
The quirky Brighton hotel that's the perfect base to explore the seaside city
THE Leonardo Hotel Brighton is the perfect base for anyone exploring the seaside city whether it's a family break, couples retreat or solo daytrip. Read on to find out more about the hotel and surrounding seaside city. 5 Where is Leonardo Hotel Brighton? This hotel is in the best location for any travellers heading to Brighton by train as it's a two-minute walk from the station. The four-star hotel is right behind the central train station, it's incredibly easy to find and the perfect place to stay while exploring the seaside city. Just a 15-minute walk from the hotel, there are shops aplenty, from classic brands to the vintage market - don't forget to stop at a local cafe for a coffee or an ice cream. If you take a leisurely stroll down the main road, you'll be at the beach in under 30-minutes. There's no parking at the hotel so any visitors by car will have to use the multi-storey or train station car park opposite the hotel. What is the hotel like? The first thing you'll notice in the Leonardo Hotel Brighton is a huge and welcoming reception area that literally says 'nice to see you'. Next to that is plenty of seating that's bright and colourful with glowing neon signs and pretty potted plants. There are games like table football too and even a little photo area too. What is there to do there? The hotel is the perfect vantage point for exploring the city, whether it's straight down to the beach or heading out for a night of clubbing, it's a great place to base yourself. Popular attractions in the city include the pier, Victoria Gardens, Brighton Toy Museum and the i360 observation deck. Beach Club that's like being on the Med 5 What is there to eat and drink there? To start the morning off right, guests can grab a full English breakfast, or continental option at the buffet. The Bar & Grill is also open for lunch and dinner too. On offer are lighter options like sandwiches and salads, all the way to curries, pizzas, pies and the seaside stable fish and chips. There's a choice of desserts too, as well as a children's menu and gluten-free options. Either in the restaurant or at the reception bar, choose from a long list of wine, champagne, beer, spirits and soft drinks. What are the rooms like? The hotel has 234 rooms and are perfect for every sort of traveller whether it's a solo daytrip, couples getaway or family break. Rooms range from standard doubles to family and executive king rooms. Each has everything you need like free Wi-Fi, a flatscreen TV with Freeview, tea and coffee facilities and it's kitted out with USB ports. There's a desk area for anyone needing to work or even use as a makeup station and a crisp white bathroom with all the basics you need. Rooms also come with air conditioning and heating too. 5 Is Leonardo Hotel Brighton family-friendly? Yes, I saw one child taking advantage of the deck chair in the hotel's reception and photo prop area. Family rooms cater for a family of four and have a double bed and sofa bed (suitable for up to 2 adults and 2 children under 12 yrs). Is there access for guests with disabilities? Yes, there are accessible rooms which are suitable for wheelchair users, and those with visual or hearing impairments. These rooms have lowered beds, wide doorways, roll-in showers, grab rails, and remote-controlled doors. Looking to book? Go to: 5
