Three of us (family)are arriving at Gatwick Airport in the afternoon and departing for a commecting flight to Rome from Stansted Airport the next morning. We would like to stay near Stansted airport in reasonable accomodation. Any suggestions?

www.baa.co.uk/main/airports/stansted/ lists most of the nearby hotels

A firm called data browse has collected notices from some thirty bed and breakfast houses, inns, private hotels, town hotels and airport hotels near Stanstead, at http://www.databrowse.co.uk/hotels/Essex/ . If you use it, then search under Stanstead Mountfichet, you will find airport hotels, efficient and of no great character. But if you search under Bishops Stortford you can choose and book somewhere old near the centre of town, with taxis and many trains and busses for the 15 minutes to and from the airport. Bishops Stortford has a station area that is a planning failure, but past that, on the high street, near the medieval parish church, you are really in England, if only for an evening.

[email protected],m

I've stayed at The Bushel & Sack Hotel in Dunmow. It's about 20 minutes drive from the airport, but the hotel do free transfers which is very handy (it saves about £15 on a taxi). The hotel itself isn't great though - it's OK. It's clean and reasonably cheap though, so if all you're looking for is a bed for the night it's not too bad.

I had booked at room at the Hilton which is right on the grounds of the airport and does a shuttle. It seems to be the closest. I also got a rate of about 88 pounds. I ended up cancelling it, because we changed to do an evening flight out instead of early morning.

We've booked a B&B 3 miles from Stansted because we have an early morning flight to Naples at the end of this month. The site is www.littlebullocksfarm.co.uk and the email address is [email protected]. They are charging a rate of £50 and will arrange a taxi for the return to the airport. They do have family rooms but I'm not sure what the price for those are.