Foreign Perspectives

Short-break holidays tend to be quite different from normal holidays in a number of key areas and hence it’s best to plan them differently too.

By “short-break” we mean a holiday that is anything from two to five days in duration. Less than two days and you’re talking a day-trip which is quite different; more than five and you’re edging into the territory of normal holidays.

In that they’re short, clearly any time lost in getting to and from your destination should be minimised. There’s little point in considering a short-break holiday that involves a flight of more than a few hours as that will mean that your first and last day will be lost in travelling to and from your holiday location.

Ideally, you should choose somewhere that you can get to by way of a morning flight and return on an evening flight as this can add up to a day to your time at the holiday destination at no extra cost. That’s not possible for all destinations and therefore should be a factor in your choice of holiday destination.

Where should you consider going? Clearly in a short-break time is of the essence and you should avoid places that would require long journeys when you get there. So, regional holidays are out. Yes, you could fly to Rome and do Florence, Pisa and Venice at the same time but you’d end up travelling between the cities all the time. Bear in mind too that chances are you’ll lose most of the first and last days so your notional “5 days” is really only 3 days.

This being the case, it’s usually best to look at holidays based in a single location. In many cases you can easily fill three days in a single city: Barcelona, Berlin, London, Paris, Prague and Rome are ideal for this. Don’t rule out travelling out of the city though as, for example, Versailles is an easy day-trip from Paris. Likewise, if you just want to hit the beach, do that rather than trying to see the whole region.

In that the flight times are a critical factor in the planning, it’s best to get a regional guide book such as the Rough Guide Europe or Lonely Planet Western Europe to begin with. However, once you’ve chosen your destination, the best guides for cities are those from the Eyewitness guide series or, where they don’t cover the city/region, get the Lonely Planet guide covering the region you’re going to. It’s always best to get the guide covering the smallest possible area so, if you’re heading for Montpellier, get Lonely Planet Languedoc-Roussillon rather than Lonely Planet France.

As far as choosing flights go, SkyScanner is by far the best tool for the job. To get some ideas, you can put in point of departure as UK, “London Any” and click search. This will pull up a list of all the flights departing from any of the London airports in ascending order of price. Outside of the main holiday periods, you’ll usually find that return flights including taxes start from around £20. Whatever you do, don’t continually check prices on the Ryanair site as this will cause the Ryanair computer system to raise the ticket prices (checking via SkyScanner doesn’t do that unless you click “up to date price” constantly).

What about somewhere to stay? Before you book the flights you should investigate the accommodation options. For instance, whilst flights to Venice cost as little as £30, accommodation there can easily run to £200 per night. On the other hand, flights to Berlin are similarly priced but accommodation can be had from £30 per night. Don’t overlook apartments as many are quite cheap and, of course, it’s usually a lot cheaper if you do your own cooking or get takeaways.

For accommodation, I find that Booking gives pretty comprehensive coverage but you can sometimes get lower prices on HostelWorld (which covers B&Bs through to five star hotels these days) or on HotelClub however of these only Booking doesn’t have a booking fee.

If at all possible, it’s best to avoid car rental on a short break as that adds even more lost time in picking up and returning the car not to mention parking and, of course, all the costs associated with those. However, if it can’t be avoided, HolidayAutos always seem to have the best rates if you book a few days ahead (more in peak periods).

As far as packing goes, forget the suitcase and think carry-on only. That saves you more time on packing, you avoid the lengthy wait for luggage too and it’s cheaper as well. We’ll be covering what to pack in our holiday planning series shortly.

Money? You’ll certainly need some; see our holiday money guide for a comprehensive review of how best to take it with you.

We’ll be covering a number of short-break suitable destinations on Whole Earth Guide over the coming months.

This is part of our series on holiday planning.

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