Hoseasons (01502 502588; ) still has some space at the pleasant Klein Poelland development, a holiday village of comfortable properties each with its own garden. A week in a two-bedroom detached house costs £800 during August. Return P&O ferry services (08705 980 333; ) for the 11-hour trip between Hull and Rotterdam cost in the region of £590 for a family of four with a car. SKOMER The wild west of Wales features an intercontinental hub for avian life. Skomer Island sees puffins shuttling to Spain and Portugal, Manx shearwaters setting off on the long haul to Brazil and Argentina, other seabirds aiming for North America. For mere humans, the offshore adventure starts with a short-haul open boat that ferries daytrippers across from the cove of St Martin's Haven, buried in the far south-west of Pembrokeshire, to Skomer Island.
Dale Sailing (01646 603 110; ) runs a ferry daily except Monday. Tickets cost £14 return, £6 of which goes to help with the conservation effort. TUNISIA Try out one of the lovely beach resorts, like Hammamet and Monastir, which offer an excellent choice of accommodation. Hammamet, in the middle of the main coastal strip, is a good location as it is within day-trip distance of the Roman remains at Carthage, and the historic towns of Kairouan and Sousse with their exotic markets. Wigmore Holidays (020-7836 4999; ) offers a week-long holiday in four-star accommodation in Hammamet on a half-board basis, departing from Heathrow on 29 July, for £599.
UMBRIA The inland area wedged between Tuscany and Rome is still less populated and less expensive than Tuscany but with just as many attractions The main towns are Perugia and Assisi. The rest of the region is rural, a mixture of hills, valleys and small villages, with Lake Trasimeno near the Tuscan border. The nearest airports are Rome and Pisa, which are well-served by cheap airlines. Leisure Direction (0870 442 8955; ) has a selection of self-catering accommodation sleeping four from £301 for a week, excluding travel VARNA Bulgaria was a touristic joke for decades. But now even its third-largest city of Varna, well-located halfway down the long Black Sea coast, and with its own airport, is a good choice for the quality of the beach and watersports on offer.
