Here are a few of our favourite West Country holiday cottages for winter walks in the Westcountry, from the Mendip Hills in Somerset to the Cornish Riviera.

 

Bridesmere, Moretonhampstead – Sleeps 8

This converted barn has a large entrance hall where you can store your coats and muddy boots after a day exploring Dartmoor National Park. A lovely footpath starts in Moretonhampstead and climbs through lush countryside to the Iron Age hill fort of Cranbrook Castle. Stop for a picnic and enjoy the views across Dartmoor before descending back to the village.

 

Hill House Farm Cottage, Cheddar – Sleeps 4

Somerset countryside holiday cottage in the  Mendip Hills 

Hill House Farm Cottage has open fires and a secure garden where you can leave your dog without worrying about an escape. We highly recommend the Cheddar Gorge Walk, a four-mile footpath along the weathered crags and pinnacles of one of England’s most remarkable natural

Six Towns and Villages to Visit on Holidays in the Wye Valley

The Wye Valley covers 126 square miles along the border between England and Wales. Its lush ravines and woodland trails make it a paradise for walking, cycling, canoeing and wild swimming. Here are six of our favourite towns and villages in the region where you can rest and refuel before continuing your outdoor adventures. I

The Wye Valley is an attractive visitor destination for country house parties. Stay with friends or large family gatherings and enjoy opportunities for lovely riverside walks along the River Wye. We’ve included our favourite selection of large Welsh and English country cottages (with one lovely exception) to stay in the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean for each town. Click on the cottage name to find out more about it or make a booking enquiry.

 

Llangovan

Llangovan is a wonderful place to savour the Wye Valley’s beautiful scenery and a slower pace of life. This

 

 

4 Coastguards, Devon – Sleeps 6

This luxury cottage in the village of Bigbury-on-Sea is ideal for dog owners, with a sandy beach right outside where you can enjoy long walks along the shore. 

There’s also private parking next to the cottage, so getting from your car to the front door with a dog or two couldn’t be easier.

 

 

Cor An Essan, Talmine -Highlands and islands

Get totally away from it all with your dog at Cor an Essan, a contemporary waterside holiday home with superb ocean views. This fully restored croft lies in a remote, idyllic location near Talmine in the Scottish Highlands, offering dog walks in every direction. This pet-friendly cottage sleeps 4-6 guests in 2 bedrooms. It may be rural, but it still has WiFi and a well-equipped kitchen.

 

 

White Willow, Fowey in Cornwall, Sleeps 2

Take your dog for a coast and country holiday in Cornwall.

White Willow is a luxuriously

As the winter approaches, you may consider what improvements you want to make to your holiday cottage. If you are planning on doing some serious decorating or replacing hard or soft furnishings, here are five simple and very handy design principles to follow courtesy of The New York Times contributing to the debate on how to furnish a holiday cottage to achieve two aims:

1: To make it look attractive.

2: To do No. 1 in ways that will prove hard wearing and continue to present a great home-from-home appearance despite repeated heavy use by guests.

This handy article suggests five well-worth-remembering design principles to inform your choice of furnishings and overall interior design to ensure your holiday cottage will continue to look attractive for longer.

NB: It may not be a design principle, but after carefully designing the interior of a holiday cottage of which you can be rightly proud and are sure will appeal to guests, don't

Like it or hate it, when used correctly and consistently, social media can be a great way to build awareness of your holiday cottage - and how to find it on the web. With the cost of advertising a cottage on a handful of top holiday property directories continuing to rise, having a social media presence will help drive more traffic to your holiday property’s website.

However, to the uninitiated, using a social media facility such as Facebook or Twitter can be very daunting. This post from Guesty.com lists the leading social media platforms and includes some valuable jargon-busters. 

So, for example, you’ll learn exactly what’ tag’ on Facebook or a #hash-tag on Twitter means, and doYou’llu’ll feel a lot more sure of yourself and understand the different ways to use social media to promote your holiday cottage after working your way through this helpful guide.

 

Click here to read: The Holiday Cottage Manager’s Guide to Social Media

It's a relatively well-known fact that it is a lot cheaper to get guests to book a return visit than it is to find first-time visitors. Naturally, having an attractive holiday cottage in a desirable location helps. However, the popular mantra "It You Build It People Will Come" is the best or only marketing strategy necessary to encourage repeat bookings. 

There are other perfectly natural, caring and common sense ways to encourage your guests to return without them feeling they are being given the hard sell. Read this handy article of useful 'guest-friendly tips from VRM Intel to see if there are any actions you don't currently employ in your plans to welcome more repeat guests.

 

Top tip: Include a welcome gift such as a complimentary bottle of Prosecco together with a handwritten card from you to your returning guests

 

Click here to read more about ways to attract more repeat bookings for holiday cottages.

Or -

Securing bookings during the peak summer season and other school holiday periods is crucial as this represents the bulk of your income. However, if you're in a good location, have a well-maintained website and advertise your holiday cottage properly, this should enable you to fill these weeks.

Autumn Walks, Tallywyn

This leaves a considerable portion of rental income achievable through letting during the shoulder and low seasons when people plan holidays for reasons often very different to the demand for peak season bookings. For example:

Weekend and midweek breaks Couples and families with preschool children able to holiday during term time People attending nearby events and festivals Anniversaries, celebrations and reunions Hobby holidays: from walking and riding to birdwatching to steam railway visiting.

Adjusting your marketing to target out-of-season bookings will deliver a handy boost to your rental income and help to keep your

Security deposits: some people swear by them, but there is always a risk in claiming them. Can you be sure you always have a leg to stand on?  

Here's an interesting and insightful exercise from Rentivo (like us, one of the more forward-thinking holiday rental sites). How would you respond to this scenario of a booking that clearly didn't go as planned? Would you refund or not? 

Choose your response and then see how everyone else has voted - together with some thoughts that might help mitigate such circumstances arising from your own bookings.

Click Here to View The Scenario and Decide How To Vote

Top tip: Our cleaners take a photo of every room as they finish cleaning it. They don't have to do anything with the image; keep it on their phone for a week or so, but if there is a complaint or damage done, we at least have an image of all our rooms taken shortly before a guest arrives. It only takes a few seconds to take the photo, but

Once upon a time, the primary battle for accommodation standards was waged between hotel and B&B establishments, with hotels generally coming out on top. Now it is primarily between hotels and self-catering accommodation, and, would you believe it, hotels still win in terms of trust ratings according to a study from Properly (Experts in short-term rental cleaning) in the USA.

 

A lot of this stems from first impressions. Get these right, and 5-star, you are on course for a 5-star review. Get these wrong, and no matter what you do after that, you'll be docked a star or two. So, having a turnover plan that ensures a property cannot fail to impress guests at the point of arrival is essential. Understand why, and discover some valuable tips to help combat the assumption that, generally, standards in cottages are perceived to be lower than those in hotels.

 

You may agree or disagree with this finding or write it off as something