Cheap Winter sun for under £250pp? (All In)

Winter sucks in the UK, it’s cold, wet and miserable so I wanted to see if you could catch some winter sunshine for under £250pp. 

The UK winter is actually one of the best times to visit the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and really anywhere in the tropics. Obviously a trip to the Caribbean would have been great but with a budget of £250pp for a week I didn’t think I would have much luck. A much cheaper and closer to home option was the Canary Islands with their year round summer weather.

First stop, Skyscanner, set month view to Jan/Feb and set departure from Glasgow or Edinburgh and check all Canaries. First and cheapest hit was Gran Canaria, £15 outbound with Ryan Air from Prestwick and £18 return with Thomas Cook to Glasgow, 6 days in total which was close enough to my week goal.

Second stop, hotels.com, after a quick check I found most of the 4* plus hotels were out of budget so I switched over to Air B&B and managed to find a couple of places which looked ideal. Cue some over excitement and all of a sudden I had booked one, without actually checking where it was. How big can Gran Canaria be? Thankfully not actually that big but anything inland was only accessible via some crazy ass mountain roads and, you guessed it, my Air B&B was right in the heart of the island!

Since our accommodation turned out to be in the middle of no-where (the title did say Rural) I thought it best to hire a car (the car rental people did laugh where I said we were going to a place called Fontanelles). Car hire in Europe can be a nightmare, if you have ever booked one before you will know never to book the cheapest car rental that comes up in a search, the pick-up location could be 10km from the airport and you can end up being up-sold insurance to cover the most obscure things. Also check the fuel policy, if it says “return with empty tank” the rental will be slightly cheaper than the “return with full tank” but be warned that you will be charged a full tank of fuel at the rental companies own fuel rate when you pick up your car.

So out of all the rental car companies at Gran Canaria airport I found only one which ticked all the boxes. Auto Reisen Car Hire. Here is why you should book with them if you visit any of the Canary Islands.

• New cars
• Pick up with full tank, return with full tank
• £0 excess insurance provided 
• No added costs
•  Additional driver for free
• Free baby seat if required
• Cost for 6 days all in for a Volkswagen polo 1.2 Turbo = 70 Euro

Was it under the £250pp budget?

• Flights = £33 x 2 =   £66
• Air B&B = £47/night x 6 = £282 - £25 Voucher = £257
• Car hire = £65 (with the UK’s crap exchange rate)
• Total = £388 for 2

What a deal! Since this came way under the £500 budget I decided to use the remaining £112 for holiday money to see if you could do a week in Gran Canaria for under £250 ALL IN, check back and see if we managed it!

Are there any flights still available? 

Im glad you asked because you can still fly out to Gran Canaria for less than £30 return. Check these links out for some of the deals.

Flying from Glasgow
March (Lot's of dates from £26 return)
April (not so many dates left from £45 return)
May (various dates from £45 return)

Flying from Leeds
March (lots of dates available from £30 Return)

Flying from Liverpool 
March (lots of dates available from £32 Return)

If you fancy booking an AirBnB you can get £30 off the total cost of your first booking, simply click through and use my Friends and Family discount bellow. (AirBnB full terms and conditions here).  Don’t say I’m not good to you :P 

 Thanks for reading