Check out any independent travel site, and it's evident from their homepages. Dirt-cheap hotel rooms in Europe, free thrown-in essentials, and flights, quite seriously, starting from a few pence.

A bait that might attract quite a crowd, but it seems we could possibly have much more fun back in Blighty this year. We boast some of the best beaches in Europe, ranging from Cornwall's coves to the beautiful Devon, the breathtaking scenery of Wales and Scotland, and then there's Norfolk and Dorset. And they all go overlooked in favour of convenient kids' clubs and Dirty Kirsty's magic trick show making her way throughout the Costas. Literally.

Even a couple of days in Brighton in the summer are bagsful of fun for families, and romantic for couples. I used to bunk off college in London and catch the train down to Brighton and just sit on the pier and write my essays, or read books, so it's equally great for singletons as well as couples. Nothing is more romantic than sitting on Brighton beach with a box of chips scouting for seashells.

And then there are those amazing Center Parc ads. You've seen them, right? The place you've never, ever wanted to visit at all before, and now find yourself sneakily Googling it at your desk, planning Spring 09. Horse riding, watersports, and pamper days sound heavenly, especially when compared with the typical "British" package summer holiday offered for pennies on a spray of travel sites right now.

Oh! we'll blame the British tourism camp for not advertising the best bits of the country to us – as isn't up to much. Everywhere you look, it's visit New Zealand, visit Egypt, visit Turkey – plastered all over our TV ads, all over our underground. This kind of advertising is rarely seen via such mediums in other countries. Our tourism site isn't tailored with the British visitor in mind.

Okay, it might not be as scorching as, say, Cyprus, but when you compare an action-packed break at one of our stunning forests or beaches with some 3* all-inclusive package holiday in Torreveija, where pretty much all there is to do is research Happy Hour at Panchos and ogle some non-English Jose from underneath your sunnies, I know which one I'm going for.

What's the big deal with heading out of the country to go to these places anyway? Overrun with Brits (and not the better half), with English-speaking locals and British cafes and British bars, usually decorated with some sort of bulldog motif, it's hardly "going away".