Buying Advice: Holiday homes mean more family time

Imagine a place just two hours from home or maybe less, where you can escape to a different world, at a different pace; a slower pace, perhaps – or a pace of adventure.

Whatever your style of leisure time, as a family or as a couple, a holiday home can be your base for a lifestyle with a totally different dimension from the one you have at home. That, as our leisure activities continue to be curtailed by restrictions to some extent, is more important than ever.

A holiday home is a haven for quality family or couple time. Now, even though restrictions are easing, with the focus still on keeping away from other people until we’ve all got the vaccine, quality time gets a new emphasis. How about turning back the clock, to an era in which people made their own entertainment – at home, or in a holiday home?

Months without cinemas, restaurants, bars and gyms have prompted us to get around this – and most of us have discovered it’s all quite enjoyable…

You can have your own cinema evenings in your holiday home; films are easily obtained from a variety of sources available to us all. ‘Feast nights in’ (as we call it in our household) can replace going out for a meal. Making a special meal is easy in a holiday home – they all have great kitchens – and, if you miss going to a pub for a drink or two, it’s easy to replace that by having ‘cocktail time’. Making cocktails isn’t difficult. All you need to start you off is a quick look online to pick some that you fancy, and put the ingredients on your next click-and-collect, or delivery order. And the beauty of cocktails is that they don’t have to be alcoholic. And the gym? Will we ever go back to the gym now that we’ve had to sort out methods of getting exercise without gyms? Buy some small and very portable stretching and lifting kit online and you can get your gym time in your holiday home!

And there’s more. How about turning back the clock even further? To the time when, not too many generations ago, people created their own fun by playing board games. Cluedo, Monopoly, chess, Scrabble… it’s all there, online, waiting to be bought. And, generations ago, people gathered around a radio; how long is it since you explored just how much variety of music and information is out there on the myriad of digital radio stations available to us?

We can all be guilty at home of immersing ourselves in our own on-screen worlds in separate rooms. But, in a holiday home, you’re more likely to be glued to a phone or iPad screen in the same room as everyone else, so your holiday home brings back the family closeness that technology can all too easily be allowed to divide.

And outside? Feeding ducks on a pond, walking, cycling… all things that you can do to spend time together, and all things that having a holiday home can foster, naturally.

What’s important is spending time together. We may be just emerging from lockdown, and still subject to restrictions, there is no lockdown on fun – and a holiday home is surely your passport to fun.
 

More information:

If you've enjoyed reading this article and want to know more about buying and owning your own holiday home or park home, take a look at Park and Holiday Home Inspiration magazine, which is available in both print and digital formats.
 

All images are courtesy of Willerby and may not be reproduced without permission