Best Family Summer Destinations for 2012

FRANCE

Cycling in the Vercors mountains

Based in a former 18th-century mill in the foothills of the Vercors mountains, this cycling holiday is more about having fun than attempting to beat any Tour de France records. The British owners are on hand to help with route suggestions – picked for low amounts of traffic, and child seats are available. You’ll pass orchards, caves, lakes, rivers and plenty of other spots in which to pause en route. There are just three self-catering gîtes, which get booked up early for school holidays.
• Velo Vercors (+33 4 7571 3550, velovercors.com) offers a week self-catering for four in high season, including transfers from Lyon, bike hire, mapped cycle routes, and a home-cooked evening meal on the day of arrival, for £1,310. EasyJet (easyjet.com) flies to Geneva from £85 return in August

Camping in Brittany

If you’re sniffy about camping, consider two things: you’re not Hyacinth Bucket, and you’ll save lots of money to spend on fine French food. Venue Holidays is offering 10% off summer rates if you book this month – for example a week in late July is £567 for four at Fouesnant, which is near a sandy beach and has a pool. The price includes fully equipped tent and midweek Dover-Calais ferry crossing for car and passengers.
• Venue Holidays (01233 629950, venueholidays.co.uk)

B&B in Provence

Les Sardines aux Yeux Bleus is a chic B&B near Uzès which keeps its prices the same all year round, so summer books up quickly. The owners, a former Paris model and a photographer, have three cats and two children and the place is family-friendly. There’s plenty to explore round about if you don’t want to just linger by the pool.
• With i-escape.com, an apartment for four for a week with a double bed and a sofa bed, including breakfast, is £936

Gascony farmhouse

Warm summer days, great food, plenty of wine, a sultry jazz festival – who’s in? A lot of people, actually, which is why rental properties in Marciac, west of Toulouse, get booked up for the two-week festival each summer (jazzinmarciac.com). Try La Ferme, a stone house sleeping eight (so good to share with another family) just outside the town, with great views over rolling countryside. It has a good-sized lawn for evening boules, and a pool.
• Booked through The Gascony Secret (0844 8001637, gascony-secret.com), La Ferme costs £925 for a week self-catering in August. Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies from Stansted to Lourdes, 40km from Marciac, from £145 return in August

Treehouse stay in Paris

Some youngsters might yawn at the prospect of being dragged round the French capital, no matter how fantastical the tales you conjure up about gargoyles atop Notre Dame. So bribe them by saying you’re staying in a treehouse. Keycamp offers them at its Paris International site, a 20-minute train ride from the centre.
• Keycamp (0844 406 0319, keycamp.co.uk) offers four nights in a treehouse sleeping five from 20 August for £551

Dordogne cottage

Tour operator Simply Perigord’s high season starts on 13 July, so if your children finish school before then, head south to bag an early bargain. Jolie Maison, for example, is just outside the market town of Le Bugue. It’s a lovely old stone cottage that sleeps four and has its own pool, with a garden and vine-covered eating area for balmy evenings.
• A week in Jolie Maison (+33 5 5354 5431, simply-perigord.com) before 13 July (and after 31 August) costs from £660. Bergerac airport is 45km away – Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies there from Bristol, East Midlands, Liverpool and Stansted from £140 return

Camping on the Ile de Ré

Eurocamp is offering discounts of up to 20% for summer bookings made by 22 February, so for example a week in late July in a fully equipped tent sleeping six at the Interlude site on the Ile de Ré, with pool and beach close by, costs £662. All you have to do is show up and start playing pétanque.
• 0844 406 0552, eurocamp.co.uk; this holiday, with Portsmouth-St Malo return ferry crossings included, costs £1,102

SPAIN

Extremadura farmhouse

La Lancha, a farm in Extremadura, well away from the costas, has been restored by a Swedish designer. Ikea-phobes, fret not – with an ornamental, twisting staircase and French antiques, it’s the anti flat-pack. Outside there’s an olive grove, pool, tennis court, basketball hoops and bikes, so you can pedal off and explore. It sleeps 14 so is perfect for several families together. As it’s only available to rent from July to September, it gets booked up fast.
• Booked through Sawdays (01275 395430, sawdays.co.uk/selfcatering), a week in high season is £2,100

Menorca beach apartment

Cosmos Holidays will throw in free breakfasts on some summer bookings made before 19 January – every little helps – for example at its self-catering apartments in Menorca. The ones at Punta Prima, in the south-east of the island, are on a hillside overlooking the beach, sleep four in two rooms, with kitchen and satellite telly if you want to watch the Olympics. There are plenty of bars, restaurants and shops nearby if you don’t.
• A week self-catering with Cosmos Holidays (0844 573 4261, cosmos.co.uk) from 25 July is £1,739 for a one-bedroom apartment sleeping four, including flights. Breakfast is included if you book before 19 January

Country cottage in Fife

One reason to book your holiday now is to make sure you get exactly the property you want for summer. Cambo Estate in Fife has a range of cottages and apartments – including some that were former servants’ quarters, if you’re still getting over Downton Abbey – and its location makes it handy for trips to St Andrews, a host of lovely golf courses in Fife, fishing villages, beaches, pubs, shopping in Dundee, a day out in Edinburgh and hikes in Perthshire.
• East Cottage (01333 450054, camboestate.com) has one double and one twin bedroom and costs £665 for a week in peak season

Cabin in Worcestershire

The eclectic, bucolic Hatch Cabin – “a wendy house for grown-ups” – is located in a private meadow near Lindridge and always gets snapped up early for summer. It comfortably sleeps six so is perfect for a larger family or a group. In the evening you can listen for owls and stargaze through the telescope, there are supplies of paper if you want to draw or paint, and in the main house, a short distance away, there’s a recording studio and performance space if you want to create your own rock festival.
• Stays at the Hatch Cabin, booked through Canopy & Stars (01275 395447, canopyandstars.co.uk) cost from £110 a night in summer (two-night minimum)

Hiking in the Lake District

Children under 11 go free, those aged under 17 get 50% off and if you bring a grandparent accompanying at least two adults and one child they get 10% off too on this walking holiday deal in Cumbria. You’ll be based by the shores of Derwentwater, and can choose from up to three guided walks each day – to Helvellyn’s Striding Edge, for example, or Scafell Pike.
• A week’s hiking with HF Holidays (0845 470 8558, hfholidays.co.uk) in the school holidays costs £695 for adults and £347 for 11-17s, including full board, guided walks, social activities and transport to and from the hikes

Sailing in the Norfolk Broads

Get a free half-day’s sailing lesson worth £60 when you book this month for a week on a four-berth boat in the summer holidays with Waterways Holidays. Tornado is a 27ft yacht with a motor, but the kids can have fun helping raise the sails if the wind gets up. Inside it’s compact but the dining area converts into a double bed and there are two single beds at the bow.
• A week on a cruiser with Waterways Holidays (01252 339023, waterwaysholidays.com) costs £799, including a tank of diesel, gas for cooking and hot water, and car parking. Quote code “GD12″ for the free tuition

SWEDEN

Cottage on Grinda island

There are around 30,000 islands in the archipelago east of Stockholm, the larger ones easily reached by ferry (waxholmsbolaget.se). They are idyllic places to spend long summer days hiking in meadows, kayaking, picnicking and barbecuing – so act now to grab a spot before the Swedes. Grinda is one such island, with plenty to do for outdoorsy families and a range of accommodation, including an old inn (good for a splurge meal on the outside deck), a hostel and 27 cottages near the shoreline.
• A cottage for four in summer costs £655 for six nights (Mon-Sun) with Grinda Wärdshus (+46 8 542 49491, grindawardshus.se). Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies to Stockholm Skavsta from Edinburgh, Liverpool, Gatwick and Stansted from £75 return in August

GREECE

Villa in Malathiros, Crete

Freelance Holidays is offering 5% off high-season villa rentals if you book before the end of this month. You’re not restricted to weekend changeovers, which means you could take advantage of cheaper midweek flights. Malathiros villas have one double bedroom and comfy sofa beds for the kids. There’s a garden close by where you can pick your own vegetables for salads and the owner’s son Kosta will, for an extra charge, bring meals from the family taverna to save you cooking. Beaches in the bay of Kissamos are a 15-minute drive away.
• Freelance Holidays (01789 297705, freelance-holidays.co.uk) has a week’s rental in high season from £694 if booked by 31 January. EasyJet (easyjet.com) flies to Chania from Gatwick from around £240 return in August

TURKEY

Princes’ Island apartment

If you want to see a different side to Turkey’s largest city, stay on one of the traffic-free Princes’ Islands, which are a 50- to 90-minute ferry commute from Istanbul. Cycles, horse-drawn carriages or feet are the only ways to get around, whether you’re heading towards the beaches or meandering along forested paths. Demand for the few rental properties always exceeds supply in the school holidays, so it’s a good idea to book now.
• A week in a flat sleeping four in high season with Istanbul Islands (020-7436 8009, istanbulislands.com) costs from £760. Turkish Airlines (turkishairlines.com) flies to Istanbul from Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham and Manchester, from £310 return

MOROCCO

Atlas Mountains trek

The Adventure Company offers 5% off if you book at least six months in advance, so you can sneak a discount if you get in early on its eight-day family trips to Morocco. There are departures on 23 July, and 6 and 20 August, when you’ll take part in a four-day trek in the Atlas mountains, staying in Berber villages, and spend time in Marrakech.
• The Adventure Company (0845 2871198, adventurecompany.co.uk) has eight-day trips (for four, children must be 12 or over), excluding flights (£2,796 including flights), with accommodation, most meals, local transfers and guiding

SOUTH AFRICA

Wildlife lodge, KwaZulu-Natal

If you want to see wildlife in a setting normally only visited by South Africans, bypass Kruger and head to KwaZulu-Natal. Umkhumbi Lodge has 12 rooms and a pool and is offering 20% off for summer bookings made this month (mention code WHGUA). Not only do you have the wildlife-packed Hluhluwe-Imfolozi and Mkhuze national parks a short drive away, but there are sandy beaches and fishing at Sodwana and Kosi Bay and Isimangaliso Wetland Park too, which will be more than enough to keep everyone happy.
• A week at Umkhumbi Lodge (+27 76 164 1134, umkhumbilodge.co.za) in two interconnecting rooms costs £1,272 half board for two adults and two children under 12. Activities, drinks, flights and transfers are not included. The nearest international airport is Durban, two-and-a-half hours away by car. Emirates (emirates.com) flies from Gatwick to Durban from £620 return in August

WEST INDIES

Beach villa on Grenada

If you book by the end of this month you can get 30% off a villa at Mount Cinnamon, which means prices in July start at £150 a night for a villa sleeping two adults and two children. The small resort overlooks Grand Anse beach and has a children’s club in the holidays. You can go sailing and snorkelling and visit cocoa and spice plantations.
• Seven nights in a villa for four at Mount Cinnamon (0808 234 2497, mountcinnamongrenadahotel.com) starts at £1,030, excluding flights. Monarch (monarch.co.uk) flies once a week from Gatwick from £500 return

PERU

Inca trail trek

If you’ve always wanted a family adventure hiking the Inca Trail be aware that permits for the year become available in January and those for the popular trekking months of July and August go quickly – so book early.
• Journey Latin America (020-8747 8315, journeylatinamerica.co.uk) has a 10-day holiday to Peru from £2,238pp, (£1,888 for under-12s,) including flights, transfers, B&B accommodation, camping equipment for the trek, guide and porter services, full board on the trail, and guided excursions in Cuzco and the Sacred Valley

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Christopher Parr is the CEO and Editor of Pursuitist