Planning a last-minute early spring holiday? Check the Late Availability page on My Favourite Holiday Cottages for details of cottages offering last-minute discounts with savings of up to 20% (that’s your grocery bill for a holiday covered).

We often describe planning a self-catering holiday for large groups of friends or for dual family holidays as like putting eels into a string bag. If you’ve been charged with finding and booking a large holiday cottage, read our large group accommodation tips to help make your life a lot easier. NB: The golden rule is that whoever makes the booking gets the first choice of the bedrooms available!

Once you have read the article, here’s your gateway to finding some of the loveliest large holiday cottages in the UK from which to find your favourite one.

Did you know that when booking a holiday cottage

Fancy a holiday in a riverside cottage? View these waterside holiday cottages in the UK.

Waterside cottages offer handily located self-catering accommodation for holidays by the riverside, the shores of a lake or alongside a canal towpath. Generally, with lovely views (and the occasional friendly duck for company), waterside properties are suitable for holidays at any time of year for families, groups of friends or a romantic escape for two. Perfect for spending days walking, wildlife spotting, fishing, messing about on the water in canoes, sailing dinghies, or feeding the ducks.

Find riverside holiday cottages on the Norfolk Broads or overlooking a scenic South Devon estuary such as Dartmouth and Newton Ferrers. Then there's the Lake District in Cumbria or a whole host of waterfront holiday cottages on the shores of lochs in Scotland. Whether you want to walk alongside a river, lake or canal or indulge in a spot of paddling along an estuary shore,

As a holiday cottage owner, have you ever felt that the only time you can take a holiday is between November and February (other than Christmas) because you need to be there for your guests? It can be a problem, I know - or even the cause of a guilty conscience as you have fun abroad while news of gales at home filters in.

Take heart! Wendy Boast from Peak Cottages, a long-term subscriber to My Favourite Holiday Cottages, an owner of two immaculately presented holiday properties in the Peak District, found time to take a long holiday without it proving a problem. Here, she happily shares her Top-10 Tips for owners to make it less daunting for them (you) to take a longer-than-usual break. In Wendy’s case, this was a holiday in Norway for almost a month.

Here’s her handy checklist that helped things run a bit more smoothly: Take it away, Wendy!

1: Take note of the contact details, arrival dates and check-out dates of all guests arriving and

Theatre lovers? Book holiday cottages in North Devon near Barnstaple for a memorable theatre weekend in June 2024. From Thursday, June 27th to Sunday, June 30th – in beautiful North Devon, see up to 38 different shows at Barnstaple’s impressive Fringe TheatreFest. Now in its 17th year, it’s a Fringe Theatre Festival like no other, attracting a growing audience from across the UK.

The Festival features artists and companies from throughout the UK and Europe. Now celebrating its 17th Anniversary Year, Fringe Theatre Fest venues are suitable in the heart of historic Barnstaple, all within easy walking distance of each other. They include three venues in the Queen’s Theatre, one in a converted Baptist Hall and also St Anne’s Community Arts Centre on Paternoster Row, which dates back to the 14th century - once a charnel house, then a school where John Gay, of Beggar’s Opera fame, was educated. In addition to the more traditional venue-placed performances, there

Whether it is indoors or outdoors, one of the best things about holiday cottages with a swimming pool is that you can happily spend all day 'at home' in them simply relaxing 'poolside.' They are also very effective in tempting the children away from their i-Pads and mobiles for an hour or so. Whether for exercise, wallowing around on something inflatable under a sunny sky, or keeping the kids entertained, pools can provide hours of calorie-burning fun without having to leave your accommodation.

There’s nothing quite like coming home after a hard day’s sightseeing or sandcastle building for a rejuvenating dip in the pool. It also means you don’t have to go to the beach every day for a swim and makes a great venue for poolside BBQs (just remember the difference between chicken wings and water wings before taking the plunge).

Five great things about having your own pool on holiday:

We invited our accountants, Simpkins Edwards, to offer a thumbnail description of the way the changes in the 2015 Summer and Autumn budgets will affect holiday cottage owners to help identify and calculate possible changes in the tax payable on your property.

Although the news has been in the public domain for a few months, as we approach a period when many owners will be preparing their budgets for 2016-17 (and prices for 2017), it would be opportune to provide this information. Here’s what Partner Jilly Watson has to say.

If you are the owner of a holiday cottage, there were various announcements in the Summer Budget and Autumn Statement which will directly affect you as a second property owner or would directly affect you should your cottage no longer qualifies as furnished holiday lettings (FHL).

The main changes announced in the Autumn Statement affecting buy-to

There’s nothing quite like a bracing winter walk through muddy country lanes or across windswept beaches and cliff tops to blow out the cobwebs. So, pack your wellies and make a weekend of it. Combine one of these winter walks with a 2-3 night self-catering holiday in a nearby cottage. Here are six scenic walks and cycle paths to explore and six idyllic, warm and toasty holiday cottages to relax in front of a log fire after the long plod.

Here’s a great one to start off! The River Thames flows through many marshes and mudflats, and these lowland walks make for some fantastic birdwatching or shooting! With a camera, of course. The great thing is these birds tend not to be overly afraid of people, so you can get a good look with your average pair of binoculars, even if you leave your bazooka lens or Hubble telescope at home.

You can start at Cliffe for the entire 15-mile walk or join earlier if you want a bit less of a trek

Self-Catering Holidays at Britain's World ChampionshipsIt's so hard to choose where to go for a weekend break in the UK. Few corners of this fine country don't offer visitors stunning views, historic houses, idyllic villages, buzzing towns, moorland and beautiful beaches (phew!). But why not book a short break in a holiday cottage that includes a morning or an afternoon spectating at a World Championship? Britain has so many, from bog snorkelling to worm charming. You wouldn't believe just how extreme we Brits can be when doing something totally bonkers while taking it seriously. Laugh through you may; they all provide unique and eminently watchable experiences to build a short holiday. You might even want to enter one as a competitor!

Here's a list of our favourites - together with some suitably world-class self-catering cottages to enjoy your evenings away from the sport of the day.

Let's kick off our list with the funniest-sounding world

Welcome to the first My Favourite Newsletter of 2016. We’ve got lots of news for cottage owners, from interior design to how the advertising market is changing.

This Newsletter is published every month, and we think it is essential reading for anyone interested in holiday cottages - especially their owners. Please click here to subscribe to the Newsletter (free).

For all you long-time subscribers – our new format includes a title and a short snippet that conveys the purpose of the article and the benefits in store should you choose to read the full article. To read the rest, click on the link.

Good News for Holiday Cottage owners – occupancy rates are on the up! Boshers Insurance looks at the latest tourism trends forecast from the experts at Visit England. Especially useful if you want to know which aspects of the market are on the increase so you can adjust your advertising accordingly.

Read more: Boshers

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