Where to find best value staycations and weekend get-aways

With the huge increase in staycations this year, it’s useful to know which places in the UK offer best value for money.

In the past month online searches for ‘staycations’ have increased by 83 per cent as people look for the best deals.

New research has revealed where you can get best value breaks in Britain across 30 towns and cities.

Newcastle came out tops as a destination.

The city scored top marks for its number of affordable attractions, providing more than any other city in Britain on Tripadvisor, with full points for the number of good value hotels available.

York is the UK’s second best value staycation spot.

Historic York has a bumper number of budget-friendly hotels. Its ratio of public parks, gardens and open play areas to individuals in the city, ranked it fourth over all.

Dover and London (the UK’s most visited city) - were joint third, scoring highly for provision of public parks, gardens and open play areas per individual.

Others to do well for such amenities include Brighton, Inverness, Portsmouth, Bournemouth and Reading.

Luton has seen the biggest online search increase in holidays - by 221 per cent.

Inverness also saw a spike in searches, with 135 per cent increase in interest, suggesting Brits are heading north for scenic open space.

Dover and Bournemouth saw figures double for those seeking holiday information.

Tombola, who carried out the research, analysed Google search volume between May and June 2020 to reveal which UK cities and towns experienced the biggest spike in holiday queries.

Further findings revealed a 141 per cent lift in searches for Nottingham. Stratford-upon-Avon had a 71 per cent increase, Portsmouth 70 per cent, and Bath, 65 per cent.

To address concerns about social distancing, Stratford-upon-Avon is the best UK town for open space.

This includes public parks, gardens and open play areas (of destinations studied). It was calculated there is an area of open space for every 988 individuals in the town - best ratio in the UK.

Windsor also scores well while Bristol, York and Inverness round up the top five in this category.

A study of the number of NCP car parks within each city found Bristol caters well for motorists. However, it is Manchester that, ultimately, offers best parking facilities.

For overnight stays, Bournemouth offers the largest number of budget-friendly Tripadvisor hotels per tourist. You can enjoy your holiday at a safe distance, with 4,281 tourists for each budget hotel.

Newcastle too, has great provision, with 8,294 tourists per budget-friendly hotel. This figure compares to 45,020 per hotel in London.

Sheffield is third with a low cost hotel per 8,429 tourists, followed closely by Northampton’s one per 8,857 visitors.

Both Newcastle and Dublin top the UK chart for five-star budget-friendly attractionsDublin offers 19 such venues, with 17 to sample at Newcastle.

London has the highest number of tourists per year in the UK - around 19 million - but, surprisingly, comes in fourth place for the number of five-star budget-friendly attractions, just behind Edinburgh.