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Maybe I'm suffering from rose tinted glasses or it has always been this way and I just didn't notice when I used to be a rufty tufty wild camper, but I was hoping to sneak away for a four day road tour on the west coast, I've spotted some absolutely mad little roads and managed to link them all up in a nice 4-day/600km itinerary.
First of all train prices seem to have shot up, so it looks like £100-£140 all in for train travel to/from start points (that's advance!) and also accommodation seems awfully thin on the ground now, in some places you can only find hotels or B&Bs at £115 - £150 a night, and some of those demand 2 night minimum stay!
No hostels en-route, and of the few camp sites at least two are 'caravan and camping' which actually translates as 'members only, and no camping' 😂
I've actually given up due to the uncertainty of getting bikes on trains and have changed plans to ride from the front door and tour the Cairngorms, but it's almost worse, e.g. all 'caravan and no-camping' sites or expensive hotels/B&Bs, that is unless you stick to the main routes and roads.
Is this just the combined effects of Covid and NC500 changing the tourism market? Or was it always thus and if you wanted a cheap trip you needed to wild camp?
I've finally landed on a good looking route which is entirely based on those hostels that are still open so it's come good in the end but I was almost just sad at the idea that exploring the highlands seemed to be becoming a more expensive hobby?
Flame away, maybe I've just gone soft and over-privileged! 😂
Hmmm - train ticket prices have always been tricky but I just had a look on the scotrail site - you can only book ahead as far as april on Scotrail
Edinburgh to Strathcarron £86 Edinburgh to blair athol £25 both singles
Are you using trainline? IIRC that allows you to book further ahead than scotrail but only at full price????
I agree that costs have risen.
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/accomodation-costs/
As ever, there is a balance of rising costs in places which have a short season, rurality and lack of seasonal peak capacity as cost multipliers.
However, booking a week through the Hebrides this year has been chuffing expensive and seems some greedflation happening...
Not sure where you’ve been, but we’ve just been through +20% compounded inflation and prices are still rising at 5% (and even more for service/food type products).
Oh yeah, I could deal with inflation, i.e. a hostel bed is now £35/night when I was more used to £20/night, and that's no surprise.
I just meant the cheap options don't appear to exist any more i.e. fewer hostels, bunkhouses or campsites, and more places asking for 2-night minimum.
I don't actually blame the accommodation providers, i.e. on of the 2 night minimum stays was in Glenelg where I guess cleaning staff etc. might be hard to come by.
As I write this I'm maybe realising it's just because I was being too inflexible i.e. only had four days available so "had" to do an exact distance per day. Perhaps my rose tinted glasses are forgetting I had more free time 20 years ago! 😂
I certainly recall there once being more campsites but there was a bit of a contraction in the numbers camping (probably due to cheap flights). It seems less hassle now to set up an Aire for campervan and motorhomes as they don't need toilet facilities or much maintenance/staffing.
In some places (notably the Outer Hebrides) the number of small B&Bs has reduced due to folk buying them up as second homes/holiday homes.
However, booking a week through the Hebrides this year has been chuffing expensive and seems some greedflation happening…
That'll explain all the teuchters driving about in new Lamborghinis.
We did Pennine Bridleway last July, and the stops in two 'pubs' were £140 a night (Friday and Saturday) but we shared rooms, so £70 each. It's not cheap.
Mad, when I get Manchester city centre hotels for around that price at weekends, or Premier Inn/Travel Lodge for £50 weekdays.
That’ll explain all the teuchters driving about in new Lamborghinis.
I hear you.
But £35 for a patch of grass, one single loo in a metal shed and an outside tap for £35 with a load of reviews saying 'not had a lick of paint or tidy up in a decade' or a pub single room starting at £160 plus breakfast seems 'ouch'....
Most years we take a bit of a tour of the highlands in on our motorbikes. Accom was typically around £90 a night in a low-end hotel, including breakfast. It seems to have doubled this year - not epic.
Just booked 3 nights B&B accommodation on the Hebrides for later in the year, and average price per person was £70 including breakfast. Slightly more expensive as 3 of us travelling so needed two rooms in all places.
Now to get the ferries booked!
are you able to turn it into a bike packing trip and wild camp?
Camping is probably more enjoyable/pleasant than a BnB anyway, especially at those prices!
Now to get the ferries booked!
😳
Just foot passengers and bikes so appeared to be plenty of space. All booked now anyway!
It's being going mad for longer than the current inflation episode. I think I first became aware that the sort of trips I had been doing all my adult life were no longer easy or sometimes possible around 2015 when a tour went wrong and I could not get on a bus to get back to my starting place or even a hostel bed. For years, the Highlands was an easy place to travel, the idea of booking everything so far in advance or paying today's prices in real terms was never considered. The past 3 years with the extra inflation and the no tents campsites or that 2 consecutive nights abomination have made it worse.
It's the numbers. I just camp now. Last year I got lucky and even got good affordable sites on three islands but I had to book one of them 6 weeks out - Tiree.
No hostels en-route, and of the few camp sites at least two are ‘caravan and camping’ which actually translates as ‘members only, and no camping
I don't think any of the Camping and Caravan* club sites in Scotland are members' only? You pay more as a non member, for sure, but still reasonably priced. I think we paid around £12 a night each in 2022 for a tent with an electric hook up. Members old gits rate BTW.
I'm with you on the 2 nights minimum though. Try ringing them. You could of course always join and get voted on to the board of management and force a change of policy. I'll vote for you.
*Not to be confused with the Caravan club.
I was going to go to the Fort William world cup but the only hotels with vacancy left were £550+ for 3 nights.
Sod them, I'll go somewhere else that weekend. It'll save me a drive.
Not just Scotland - started planning a few days in East Anglia for my first cycle holiday. Accommodation and trains got silly, ended up paying not much more for an organised and supported trip.
I get the impression - by the cars and expensive but spotless outdoor gear - that the Highlands attracts an affluent group of travellers. I don't know how it compares with the past and if in the old days there was a larger proportion of rough and ready outdoor types of more modest means.
And of this well off group I suspect it's holiday 4,5,6 of the year. Maybe the b and b owners decided after looking at the £600pcm rental car and the £1k outfit standing before them "I could get a a slice of that income"
The UK holiday is getting gentrified along with everything else. Roll up roll up for your luxury leccy and gas.
The post Covid staycation thing drove prices up and they've not really come back down to pre-Covid levels. There does seem to have been a move from holidaying abroad to staying in the UK - maybe folks found out how good the UK can be, maybe it's for environmental reasons, maybe something else - but it's not cost. It's quite easy to go abroad for less than staying here.
I also heard recently that in our local town (Sedbergh) around a third of properties are now Air BnB. In our dale well over half the properties are second home or holiday lets occupied only in summer or weekends. Crazy prices and people pay them. Also has driven house prices so high that the only people buying are retired southerners. Local accent is now 'awright mate?' and the white BMW/Audis (and shiny new Defenders with low profile tyres) far outweigh sensible rural cars.
The owners told them that many of the B&Bs hadn’t reopened as they can’t get the Eastern European seasonal staff
this. Its another brexit bonus. No more europeans on gap years doing it for a few bob and being prepared to live in on site accommodation so wages have to go up to attract any staff.
Its not that its artificially expensive now, its that it used to be artificially cheap
The new Scottish short let licence has had a bit of an unforeseen impact. Mostly intended to squash the Airbnb madness in the cities rather than Granny McDuff b&bing her rural spare rooms for extra pin money, it's still had a big impact. It's chuffing expense to apply for, quite the ball ache getting together all the bits and bobs needed and also gets you to ask yourself some awkward questions about your facility (like the legitimacy of fire exit routes, if your electrics meet current regs etc). As a going concern if you couldn't prove with booking lists and bank statements you were not just available but occupied for I think it was 120 nights a year, you ain't getting no licence. As a result a lot of places have closed up. Typically the slightly more part time or 'iffy' ones and they were often at the cheaper end of the market.
Also for reference, we were quoted between £150 and £180 for a changeover clean on a 3 bed, 3 bath holiday let when we thought about outsourcing some of the work, and that's not inc the laundry which would come in around £70. There's a good reason we a, do it ourselves and b, only offer full week rentals. The numbers just don't stack up otherwise. Clearly you are not looking for a full cottage, but it gives you an idea of the numbers involved if you scale that down in terms of accommodation size.
Have you tried Warm Showers?
The new Scottish short let licence has had a bit of an unforeseen impact.
Couple of places near some of the 7Stanes I've stayed at a few times have now stopped citing this.
Most were retired people in 4-5 bed rural houses with a little patch of land and some old buildings who seemed to be doing it as a hobby. I can see there might be a government intention to pressure people like that to downsize to help supply of homes for families, but I doubt these folk needed the money so they won't be going anywhere.
Short-term letting requirements, like gas, electrical safety tests or installing CO alarms?
There’s an acute housing shortage here - second home owners who don’t live here charging £2.5K/week rent begrudging paying a local £25/hr to work for 4-6 hours on a weekend for 8 months/year.
Someone was moaning on local FB that they couldn’t get local people to work as tree-planters for £17/hr - working outdoors, mid-winter for 6-8 weeks - provide your own transport and accommodation.
Did you contact the campsites to see if they were members-only? Always worth a phone call to see if they can fit you in - money for a single site for a night is generally better than no money, so they tend to be a bit more accommodating if you call and have a chat. Doesn't fix the train issues though...
Not just Scotland – started planning a few days in East Anglia for my first cycle holiday. Accommodation and trains got silly, ended up paying not much more for an organised and supported trip.
Welcome to my world! More seriously DM with what you would like to do and I'll check on what cheap local accommodation is available to you. Be warned the seaside is a licence to print money for pubs and hotels in Suffolk. On the plus side some of the providers took the piss up until last year and prices are starting to become reasonable as they need to fill rooms.
More seriously DM with what you would like to do and I’ll check on what cheap local accommodation is available to you
Thanks for the offer - other trips planned for the next couple of years now, but its an area I want to go back to.
I'd echo the suggestion you rock up and ask at campsites. As a solo/couple on foot/bikes you can often come to an accommodation. More than once I've been found a nice spot out of the way on sites that have completely converted to hard standing. It's worth noting that many sites have moved away from tents because the owners got fed up dealing with the festival camping brigade's noise, litter and lack of respect for other campers. You get a better class of inconsiderate ar£ehole in a T5.
Personally I now rarely stay on campsites because I can't be bothered tolerating aforementioned festival campers. On a longer trip I'll decant to a carefully chosen site once a week to recharge the battery pack, wash clothes and have a shower.
The pre booking thing is becoming a ball-ache. Two weeks ago I went online at 07:00 to buy a Wigan -Glasgow train ticket for mid-April the day they went on sale - and every train bar one had sold out. There must be people hammering 'buy' buttons at one minute past midnight like crack addicted Fortnite players.
there seems to have been a big increase in year-round demand. In the past at this time of year the challenge wasn't accommodation being full/expensive, it was accommodation being open as often owners would take the winter off as their own holiday (or run a second business somewhere sunnier)
Used to travel the Highlands/Islands 2005 - 2015 quite a bit for work out of season - called a place in Plockton to book and was told "Its £40 a night but thats too much" and told me to call other places in town instead that the ythough would be cheaper 🙂
On the Gairloch peninsular we had to arrange for a hotel to reopen to accommodate a job as they'd typically be closed due to low season foot fall being so low - it was September.
But that increase preceded Covid by a few years - Did a job in Skye in 2018 and the nearest accommodation we could get, at any price, was a student halls of residence in Inverness - we were having to drive over, do an 11 hour day, and drive back.
@sandwich, we've got east anglia in mind at some point so you may well hear from us!
Be warned the seaside is a licence to print money for pubs and hotels in Suffolk.
Must, after my thread the other week, I looked at Suffolk for a week in early July and cottage prices seemed a good deal higher than other areas we were interested in. Just booked on Welsh coast yesterday (near New Quay) - got a glorious Sandi Toksvig/Just Gone Fishing style cottage overlooking the sea.
Not just Scotland – started planning a few days in East Anglia for my first cycle holiday. Accommodation and trains got silly, ended up paying not much more for an organised and supported trip.
Same as Sandwich said, if any one is coming through North Norfolk, i live a mile off where the Rebellion Way, Peddars Way and Nar Valley Way intersect at Castleacre, so there is a spare room here, or you're more than welcome to put tent up in the garden, or i can let you know the best free and paid camping spots.
COVID seems have driven holiday let and other accommodation prices through the roof, seemingly with an increase in sales of Joules, Dry Robes and red trousers.