When booking a holiday you will need to consider the different types of accommodation that you may wish to stay in. There are many different accommodation choices such as camping, B and B, Hotels or private lodges, all with their advantages and disadvantages.

If you are going abroad then you will probably be staying in a hotel or villa. A hotel is a complex that has many rooms within one or more buildings. A villa is a more private setting similar to renting a house where you may have your own garden or even swimming pool.

Some hotels offer a number of accommodation types such as self-catering, half board or all inclusive. Self-catering is when you only pay for a room and facilities, half board usually includes breakfast and evening meal and all inclusive includes all your meals plus drinks (although these are sometimes restricted to house spirits and wines).

There is nothing worse than getting in to your hotel room to find that all is not what it should be. Common problems with hotel rooms include cleanliness, electrical items not working and issues with the bathroom.

If you do discover a problem you should first call down to reception and ask for the problem to be rectified or for you to be moved to another room. If this doesn’t seem to get you anywhere you could ask to speak to a manager. Tell them that you have tried to sort the issue out with reception but to no avail so therefore have had to escalate the problem.

If you are still not happy with the outcome you could write a letter of complaint when you get home or if it is a chain hotel, contact the head office.

Most hotels are keen to rectify problems quickly as they often get a lot of business through word f mouth and therefore want you to have a positive experience.

When I was young we spent many holidays in a tent on often quite a basic camp site or once or quite just in a field. This may sound to some a nightmare, but for me, those times are some of my fondest childhood memories. All too often you hear people say that they will not stay in a tent or even a caravan as they like their luxuries that only a hotel or B and B can offer. But if you are with friends or family and are able to be get back to basics a little, camping holidays can be great fun.

Firstly they are often considerably cheaper than hotels and some sites are well equipped for families with children with swimming pools, play parks and club houses on site.

Building camp fires on the beach and waking up to the sound of the sea are just some of the great memories I have from our camping trips and with six of us, there was never a dull moment.

If you have never tried camping before then why not give it a go, you may be surprised to find how enjoyable it is and often it is the best way to bring people close together as you learn to live without the luxuries of everyday life we often take for granted.

It was always a perk of going away and stopping in a hotel to see what complimentary items the hotel provided, however more and more hotels are now cutting costs and in an attempt to save money are not providing any complimentary items such as shampoo, conditioner, hand soap and sewing kits.

This is quite frustrating when you’re going away and have limited packing room as it’s not easy to take all your bathroom products with you without the risk of them leaking in your case.

Although many of the budget hotels across the board are removing all complimentary products from their hotels some places are actually using the freebies as a selling point for staying in more luxurious accommodation. More expensive rooms will often include a range of freebies from an up market brand such as Malton Brown or The Sanctuary. As well as the general bathroom products they will often provide slippers, shower caps and nail sets, these things take the stress out of packing and also make a nice memento to take away from your stay. These items cost the hotel very little and from a business point of view make a lot of sense, after all everyone loves a freebie!

With so many hotel comparison websites it can be hard to know where to go for the best deals on hotel rooms.

The main issue is that the comparison websites only review and offer a certain selection of hotels that usually pay the website to feature their hotels, therefore you don’t get a fair comparison across the board.

My advice would be to find a hotel that you like first of all and once you have checked the reviews and are happy that you’d like to stay there do a search for the hotel on Google and see which companies offer a price for the room you’d like. Search a few websites and once you find the best deal call the hotel directly and say that you are interested in booking the room and have found it online for x amount and you were wondering if they could do anything to offer you a better price for booking directly.

Often hotels have quite a large margin on their rooms that they can reduce to get business directly so it’s always worth asking as even if they cannot beat the price you may be able to get them to throw in some extras like a bottle of wine in the room or a discount on dinner, either way if you don’t ask you won’t get!