Has the glorious Easter sunshine got you plotting your next holiday or weekend away? If you’re looking for maximal sun with minimal impact on your bank balance, the results of a new report are required reading.
Post Office Travel Money recently released its annual Holiday Costs Barometer, which revealed the cheapest beach resorts in Europe. The report compares the average cost of 10 holiday essentials in various places, including a cup of coffee, a local beer, a glass of wine, a three-course dinner for two and an English newspaper.
This year’s best value destination? The Black Sea resort of Sunny Beach, Bulgaria, where a basket of typical holiday bits costs £37.33 ($46.78), is by far the cheapest for the fourth year running.
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Visit Sunny Beach and grab a cup of coffee and a bottle of local beer for less than a pound each (70p), a glass of wine for just £1.16 ($1.45) and a three-course evening meal for two (with house wine!) for the bargain price of £19.53 ($24.44).
However, don’t rush to book your flight just yet – the resort has significant problems with crime which are worth considering first. The Foreign Office has warned British travellers in the past about pickpocketing, muggings and assaults.
If you’re not willing to take the risk, consider some of the slightly costlier destinations on the list. On the Algarve in Portugal, a basket of travel goods would cost £58.38 ($73.16), but the area has a far lower crime rate than Sunny Beach and could make for a more chilled out trip.
The Costa del Sol in Spain was also rated as good value (£60.65/$76.00), followed by Marmaris in Turkey (£68.13/$85.37) and Paphos in Cyprus (£74.32/$93.13).
As ever, it pays to do your homework when booking a holiday. Beach resorts in Bulgaria and the Algarve are less than half the price of those in the South of France, Southern Italy and Ibiza, the report found.
Switching to cheaper destinations within Spain, Greece and Croatia could also save you some valuable coin, the Post Office said, enabling you to buy multiple local beers and well-earned glasses of wine.
Andrew Brown, from Post Office Travel Money, said “it will pay bargain hunters to factor resort costs into the overall price they pay for their package,” as well as flights and hotels, reported The Independent. “Greece is looking very popular this year with tour operators reporting increases of up to 40 per cent in bookings”.