When you go on holiday you want to have a good time, right? You want the food to be delicious, the weather to be fabulous, and your accommodation to be clean and comfortable. You won’t have control over the weather, unless you make silly choices as to destination. For example, if you’re looking for sunny beaches, don’t choose Scandinavia in the winter. You certainly can have some control over the other two.

There are good things and bad thing about both all inclusive and self catering holidays. You can save money on either. When it comes to self catering holidays, you are responsible for your food – either making it or going out all the time – and you are responsible for the tidiness of your rooms. There is no maid service. This means that you may be staggering in from a day at the beach followed by lots of holiday “fun” and find that your room is a mess and the beds are unmade.

At first all inclusive holidays sound fabulous. Free drinks. Food all taken care of. Maid service. Well….sometimes this is good and sometimes it’s not so good. Lots of holiday travelers who have stayed in all inclusive accommodation report that the food was either bad or cold. Or that all of the meals were buffets or that there were limited hours as to when food was available. If you sleep too late in the morning and miss breakfast – well then you’re just not getting any.

There are many luxury self catering accommodation all over the world. Most of those seem to come in the form of cottages and villas (even the word “villa” sounds luxurious, doesn’t it?) There are also many self catering establishments all over the world. Before booking, always get online and find an area that is appealing to you as a holiday getaway. Read online reviews. If someone is writing an online review, chances are good that they have no ulterior motives, other than to report how they liked their stay. This means that you can usually trust these reviews.

The best option is simply to ask friends. Surely you have friends who have gone on both self catering and all inclusive holidays. They will have general impressions about both. But they will also most probably have some suggestions as to specific places that you might want to stay in both categories, because they have been there themselves.