If you are tightening your budget, it doesn’t have to mean squeezing your holiday right out of the picture. With a little planning and some hints from the experts, I have found that you can still enjoy some holiday time this year. Avis have partnered with Lonely Planet guidebooks to give you some ideas on where to go, when and how to save money along the way.

Here are a few of the money saving tips I have picked out to help you get more planet for your pocket:

Save before you go…

• Planning your itinerary and booking transport and hotels ahead of time ensures you get the best prices, saving you both time and money.
• Booking online can fetch amazing deals.
• Also try flying with a low-cost airline to a nearby city (like Girona instead of Barcelona). You’ll save a bundle and see somewhere new.
• Travelling midweek will also set you apart from the big spenders.

Save while you’re there…

• Travelling with kids? Family and student discounts are often available for transport and sights and many destinations have parks, beaches and museums that are absolutely free.
• Family-friendly accommodation doesn’t have to cost big bucks – look for child-friendly guesthouse and family-run hotels instead of the big chains. Better yet, consider camping.

If you are looking to rent a car when you travel abroad, take a look at Rob’s post “Our tips for renting a car this summer” for lots of useful information.

If you have found the above information useful and would like to learn more from Lonely Planet, why not visit the Lonely Planet partner page on the Avis website, where you can save 10% on all Lonely Planet guides.

I’ve always felt that the Halloween theme sets up some great days out, especially with kids. Our team is planning to go to the increasingly popular Fright Night at Thorpe Park where the whole park is turned into something out of a horror movie. If hitting a roller coaster in the dark is not your thing then my colleague Donna offers up these 5 alternatives:

The Hellfire Caves in West Wycombe Buckinghamshire; Ancient caves extended in the 1740’s by the infamous Sir Francis Dashwood (founder of the Hellfire Club) who held secret club meetings in the caves. I’ve just been reading the website which explains that, if you head out at night, the G.P.S. (that’s Ghostfinder Paranormal Society!) will be on hand to help seek out Suki the ghost bride, Paul Whitehead, the man who left his heart to Sir Francis and the floating monk!

Lincolnshire Ghost Walk: This tour will take you through the Cathedral Quarter of the city of Lincoln while your host recounts chilling tales. Entertaining and only £4.00 per adult and £2.00 per child with no advanced booking required (simply meet at the Tourist Information Centre, Castle Square).

Warwick Castle is hosting spooky two Halloween Trails this year from October 25- November 2. Depending on which trail you take you could find yourself meeting Jack-O-Lantern King, Singing Plague Victims, ghoulish Grave Diggers and a strange Hermit of the Crypt.

The York Dungeons centres on the Lost Labyrinth of the Roman legion, the chilling stories of the highwayman Dick Turpin and the plague. Featuring live actors, it is not for the faint hearted! Anyone who has been to any of ‘the Dungeons’ will know what to expect but it’s still a great one for Halloween and they are advertising discounts at the moment.

Edinburgh Dungeons is again one of ‘the Dungeons’ family this time reliving the gruesome story of Sir William Wallace’s execution and other grizzly tales from Scotland’s yesteryear this Halloween. Again there are some good discounts on offer and I’d recommend booking in advance rather than at the door.

Otherwise, if planning on staying at home but need ideas to keep the young ones entertained then check out EnjoyEngland’s ‘Make your own monster’.

As always, let me know if you’ve got any Halloween ideas of your own!

I’m just back from my “credit crunch” holiday of the year. For the last week, I’ve been visiting Cornwall and North Devon whilst the British weather maintained its unpredictability and gave us one of the best weeks this summer in late September!

The first part of the holiday was spent in Penzance and one place you have to visit is the Minack Theatre. We were not fortunate enough to see a show but just visiting this amazing theatre that sits on top of a cliff at the waters edge was enough. We also visited the Eden Project which is an amazing botanical concept, brought to life in a reclaimed clay pit, just outside St Austell.

From Penzance, we travelled up the North Cornwall coast, via Padstow, Tintagel and Boscastle and spent the rest of the week in Ilfracombe on the North Devon coast. We made the most of the good weather and spent most of our time cycling the Tarka Trail and walking the coastal paths around the area.

One recommendation I would give is to go to the Quay in Ilfracombe. This modern bar/restaurant is owned by the artist Damien Hirst and sits slightly out of place amongst the souvenir and fish and chip shops next to the harbour. However, it’s worth the visit if you’re in the area as the food is delicious and the décor is beautifully done (as you would expect from an artist!!).

If you need to hire a car while you’re in the area, Avis has offices at Exeter Airport as well as in Plymouth and Truro.

Have any of you visited the area? Do you have any recommendations for where to visit? Or have you taken the opportunity to holiday in the UK this year? Let us know.

For avid blog readers, you might remember the post we did about Portugal back in May, where we mentioned Baby on Board a great baby seat fitting service that works in partnership with Avis in Portugal. Well we are trying it here in the UK now.

We have just started a 3 month trial at our Heathrow location, where specialist staff will provide the Chicco baby seats, show parents how to fit them, clean and service them in between rentals and generally answer any questions you might have about baby seats. You simply pay the Avis staff as usual, who will give you a voucher to present to the staff in the car park. In the first instance, this service will only be available for rentals leaving and returning to heathrow, but if the trial proves to be successful then we will look at a further rollout.

So, please let me know what you think about it, or even better try it out and tell me how you found it.

This is just a quick post to say that on Tuesday, GMTV ran a segment about how many parents are still not aware of the new child seat regulations that came into force in September last year. A survey from Churchill Car Insurance found, for example, that 23% of parents do not provide a child seat/booster seat/booster cushion at all for 3-12 year olds, which is now a requirement.

If you are not aware of these new rules then The Think! Road Safety website gives you all the information you need. You can also check out Eibhlin’s blog post “The new rules about child seats” for further information.

Part 2 of my holiday tips follows.. but first of all a special reminder about how important it is to decide in advance what size of car you’ll need. I’m going to Jersey on holiday next week, and have booked an MX5 to whizz around in – My husband pointed out that the several large suitcases I’m stacking up, wouldn’t fit into the car, and suggested I take less luggage (( I had a better idea and booked a taxi to take us from the airport to the hotel and back, and arranged to collect the car later )) But it’s lucky we thought about it in advance, otherwise we’d have had a domestic incident at Jersey Airport !

This happens to customers all the time, they might book what they drive at home , or what’s cheapest, without thinking through the implications, and then have a woeful start to the holiday when they get off a long haul flight and realise kids and luggage can’t be fitted into the car. And usually at this stage the luggage is the quieter of the two options:) So think about passenger capacity and luggage capacity, our website has handy little pictures showing how many people and cases the model will carry. On to Tips for Renting a Car on Holiday Part 2…

1. Most of our major locations will have English speaking staff on duty, but please be patient and remember you are in another country, it’s not reasonable to expect everyone you come across to speak English as if it were their native language. And remember some cultures are different to ours, a shrug of the shoulders in France doesn’t have the same connotations that it does in the UK, so keep an open mind:) Our rental agreements are available in English at all major locations in Europe and terms and conditions of rental should be available in English at all locations worldwide.
2. Cars will usually be provided with a full tank of fuel and you’ll normally be asked to return it full or be offered the option of paying for a tank at the beginning of your rental. There are some exceptions, notably in Malta and Cyprus. Local agreements apply where all car rental companies make a mandatory charge for the fuel in advance.
3. Take a few minutes whilst you’re loading the car, to check that it looks ok, and that if there any scratches on the bodywork, they’re recorded on the paperwork you’ve been given. If they’re not, tell someone before you leave the rental location or as soon as possible afterwards.
4. Take care when driving, and while you should be mindful of local driving customs .. don’t panic!
5. When you return your car, ask the rental staff to check the car over when you’re there and to confirm what the cost of your rental is. The price displayed on the receipt supplied by our Rapid Return staff is the final price you will have to pay and that is our guarantee. That way there’ll be no nasty surprises afterwards.
6. Finally, in the unlikely event that you follow our advice and encounter a problem that can’t be solved by the Avis staff on location, we’re always here to help when you get home.

I visited Portugal last week for a meeting with our Avis colleagues there. I have a very tough life!

We spent some time at Faro Airport and I was really impressed with a company called Baby on Board. It supplies and fits all of our baby seats at Faro and other major locations, uses the Chicco brand of baby seat exclusively and has almost every type and size of seat you can imagine!

It works really well, the team is specialist in baby seat fitting, so that gives parents an added level of reassurance and they have the time to talk each customer through what needs to be done and answer any questions they might have. I don’t have children myself, but I do know from friends, family and customer feedback how important the security and cleanliness of a child seat is. You can book the seat and pay for it through Avis along with the rental for your convenience. A great service, check it out on your next visit.

How do you keep your children entertained over the bank holiday – seaside, adventure park, museum? With the weather forecast looking good, we know many of you will be jumping in your car or hiring one for the May Day break. So if you’re looking for inspiration on where to go for a family day out, here are some suggestions put together with help from my colleagues in the Avis office.

I’d recommend www.whattodowiththekids.co.uk or www.daysout.co.uk as a good source of ideas. They have loads of information about theme parks and museums and also some great discount vouchers. The information covers the whole country so you should be able to find something, wherever you live. The AA also has a great search facility that allows you to look up local events in your area.

If your children are a little older and you’d like something a bit more adventurous, you could always try Go Ape! (as long as you’ve got a head for heights!) or Go Ballistic if paintball sounds like your thing. Personally, I’m more of a theme park person and one of my favourites has always been Thorpe Park. However, someone in the office suggested Cadbury World, which sounds like a winner to me – a place that’s purely about chocolate. Surely something that would appeal to every child.

If you are renting a car with Avis, please don’t forget to book early. Much like Easter, bank holidays are busy periods and we’ve got some great deals available to help you get out and about. For information on traffic conditions, check out the Highways Agency website.

So where are you going this bank holiday? Your ideas could be an inspiration for others and help save some family arguments!

Hopping for an egg-tastic Easter? Sorry about that. My team has been throwing around cheesy Easter puns all week and I couldn’t resist! Easter is a particularly busy time for us so I thought it worthwhile to give you some useful information on how Easter affects our business and how you might want to plan for this…

1. We expect to sell out over Easter, so if you have not yet made a reservation then please book quickly. The best way to guarantee getting the type of car you want at the best price is to book in advance.

2. At many locations we will be very busy. Please allow extra time when picking up the car you have booked, although of course we will do our best to keep any additional time to a minimum. Read our tips on what to bring to make your car pick-up as easy as possible.

3. Many of our major airport locations are open 24 hours a day and will be staying open 24/7 over Easter. However, the hours of some of our smaller offices will change for this period. If you are unsure, you can check the opening times of all our UK locations on our website. When you make an advance booking our systems will prevent it being placed for a time when the office you have chosen is not open.

4. Finally, for ideas on things to do from Good Friday to Easter Monday, then Times Online has an article with some great places to go with the kids, and some family-free options too.

Happy Easter everyone and have a great holiday!

I knew that rail prices had gone up, but I didn’t realise the difference compared with renting a car until I looked into buying train tickets to Cardiff the other day. I’m going to see Doncaster Rovers play Bristol Rovers in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy at the Millennium Stadium on 1 April with my girlfriend, my brother and his girlfriend. (I was born in Doncaster, so that’s the reason!)

We thought we’d look at train prices on the Internet as an alternative to driving, so we could avoid the hassle of parking and so people could have a drink.

The cheapest rail ticket from Paddington to Cardiff that suited us was £94.20 each. Out of interest, I thought I’d look at how that compared with hiring a medium-sized car, such as a Ford Focus, for a day from Avis.

If you look at the sums for all four of us there’s a huge difference:

4 return train tickets from London Paddington to Cardiff = £376.80 + travel from home to the station + travel from Cardiff station to the Millennium Stadium (both ways)

1 medium-sized car for four passengers on avis.co.uk = £49.40 + petrol + travel to Avis office and back + parking (and minus beers for the drivers!)

I know you can get cheap deals if you book early on the trains, and at particular times, but that’s not always convenient. With a car there’s the issue of parking, but with the train you still have to get between the station and your destination – and back again – which is likely to be a lot further than the car park.

We’ve decided to take my car, and my girlfriend and I will share the driving. But what if you don’t have a car, or it’s too small to take everyone? For families and groups I do think that renting for a day or two for a trip like mine can make financial sense. Avis often has special offers, and you can sign up to our e-newsletter to have details sent direct.