Hi,
We're a family with 2 sons (7 & 9). We're debating on whether to spend our 1 week holiday in the UK if we can find a place to stay for £300 in August.We're on a tight budget so only have about another £350 to spend on meals,outings etc. What do we like to do? Well, we love seafood,and hope to see a bit of English culture,explore the villages.The boys love stories of pirates..things like that.I was hoping to bring a few meals for our dinners to cut cost,though we want sample a few local meals too.I guess that would involve a self-catering place, unless you know of a good B & B or half-board place to stay.
We drove to Inverness and Loch Ness via Fort William in Oct 2005 and thoroughly loved it, but the 5 days cost us £1000! We stayed at a pretty awful guesthouse in Inverness for 2 nights too...But Scotland is too beautiful for words and we'd love to go again, but perhaps not yet.
Does anyone have any ideas? We'd really appreciate it.

Would you consider house swapping? If Scortland is too expensive consider Canada. The old town of Montreal reminds me of Europe. I hope to see Quebec next.

Hi,Palmettoprincess,
You know what? I don't know what's involved in house swapping. But Canada,much as we'd love to go...wouldn't the flights alone be too expensive?And for too short a time?

OK - you've added more info to you original thread. Here is part of what I posted to that one:

&quot;<i> . . . you need to think about your criteria a bit. Beaches and theatres are not necessarily exclusive - but most beach areas are not in cities where there are lots of theatres.

There are lots of places you can rent a nice 2 bdrm cottage in July for less than 350GBP - but not many at the seaside, and not any in places like London.

Do you plan on renting a car - that will be nearly as expensive as your cottage when you add in the cost of petrol, etc.

More off-the-beaten-path places like North Wales, the west Wales coast, central Scotland, Rutland, Northumberland, etc will have less expensive places to rent.</i>&quot;

W/ the new info - sure there are LOTS of cottages to rent in great parts of Scotland for 350GBP or less. I have several links at home - but I'm at my mom's just now so I'll try to post some tomorrow.

But just to get you started - take a look at these:

They are in different parts of Scotland and all are less than 350 GBP in summer.

www.uniquescotland.com/oldcroft/index.html

www.uniquescotland.com/sealoft/index.html

www.uniquescotland.com/oldcoachhouse/index.html

www.uniquescotland.com/giffencastle/index.html

www.uniquescotland.com/whiteburn/index.html

www.uniquescotland.com/huntersmoon/index.html

here is another is another inexpensive one that's in a good location for touring From Loch Ness to Speyside to the Dee,

www.uniquescotland.com/aberspey/index.html

We live in West Sussex and spend some days out in London sometimes.
Re We caught a local production of Oklahoma in Hellensburg in Scotland purely by happening to see the flyer at the B &amp; B we were staying at, and had a fantastic evening.And tickets for us all only cost &pound;16!
By the way, we will probably be driving ourselves to our holiday destination as we like to take in the views on the way, and it will probably be cheaper and more convenient.

Getting the story in dribs and drabs makes it hard. So now we know you are already in the UK, already know about self catering, and have your own car.

Doing what you want is easy peasy - look at some of the links I posted. Not that that is even the best source of low cost holiday rentals (it is the only one I could remember the URL off the top of my head). But as you can see there are tons of great places w/i your budget.

Alternatively go to Travel Inns at &pound;26 per family room per night.

There are a number of agencys (Hoseasons, Blakes, etc) that offer self-catering lodges and caravans as well as cottages thoughout the country - but in August prices go up considerably. You might even consider buying a cheap tent - then you can have lots of UK holidays, weekends, etc at low cost - your young sons might find it quite an adventure. We had a number of camping holidays when our children were small, enabling us to stay where we liked at a fraction of the cost.

I was going through the mental process of identifying places that might suit, and was thinking lodges/chalets, then I remembered the wigwams
http://www.sac.ac.uk/consultancy/wigwams/

Then, as Maria mentioned caravans, I remembered the site at Portnadoran at Arisaig which my brother and his kids go to regularly. It is idyllic. They have 3 0r 4 statics which you can rent.

I can't find any photos of it, specifically on the web, but there are other camp site round about that will give you an idea.

here are a couple more at or below &pound;300

http://www.mackays-self-catering.co....=21&amp;id=118

http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/ren...rleithen/25050

Youth Hostelling with children of that age would be great fun and you could more or less stay wherever you want to go. Family rooms are available and you'd certainly come in under budget.