Is the UK’s winter beginning to bite? We’ve found some of the most affordable winter sun destinations.
When we compared the cost of holidays to popular long-haul destinations, Thailand was one of the cheapest tropical getaways. A bottle of beer typically costs £2.80 on the island of Phuket, while a pad thai costs half that from a street food cart in Bangkok.
December is also a great time of year to explore Florida’s theme parks, white-sand beaches, wildlife-rich waters and good-value restaurants.
If you’re looking to fly and flop, consider Cape Verde. We found it was cheaper to fly to this Atlantic archipelago than to other mid-haul destinations.
Even in the depths of December, you can find sunshine in Europe: Cyprus’s south-east coast typically still enjoys six hours of sun a day, while Lanzarote is the warmest of the Canary Islands – Playa Blanca was the top-rated resort in our survey.
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Lanzarote
December high: 21°C
The fourth-biggest Canary Island is typically a little balmier than Gran Canaria or Tenerife in December. Fringed with sandy beaches, its volcanic landscape provides the backdrop to sugar cube houses and otherworldly national parks such as the red lava fields of the Montañas del Fuego (mountains of fire).
When we asked 1,900 people about their Canarian holidays, Playa Blanca was the top-rated resort in Lanzarote. Situated in the south, Playa is named for its talcum-powder main beach and one of the island’s more upmarket resorts, especially at the Marina Rubicon, with its seafood restaurants and fancy yachts.
Package tourism also centres around older Puerto del Carmen, which isn’t very pretty but visitors gave its beach and eateries four out of five stars in our Canary Islands survey. Both Playa Blanca and Puerto del Carmen have festive markets in December.
Find package deals in Gran Canaria with Jet2holidays or Tui. (Jet2holidays was rated the best UK holiday company in our survey of almost 8,000 holidaymakers.)
Cyprus
December high: 18°C
Cyprus is typically a little warmer than many Mediterranean islands in December, and you can still enjoy six hours of sunshine a day. Seaside resort towns Larnaca and Protaras typically have highs of 18°C, while historic Paphos is a breezier 17°C.
Off-season Cyprus offers a chance to discover crowd-free beaches, dine in traditional mountain villages, pound the cobbled streets of divided Nicosia or savour archaeological wonders such as the House of Dionysos in Paphos.
While Paphos’s beach is nothing to write home about, it clinched four stars for value for money, attractions and food drink, and the maximum five stars for friendliness and peace and quiet in our recent survey of the best Mediterranean beach towns. Hotel prices were lower than in many destinations and room rates are even cheaper at this time of year.
Just don’t forget your jacket for the evenings.
Find package deals in Cyprus with Jet2holidays or Tui.
Cape Verde
December high: 26°C
Marooned off the west coast of Africa, this archipelago of tropical islands enjoys year-round sunshine and is less than six hours by plane from the UK. When we compared average flight prices for mid-haul winter sun destinations, Cape Verde was the cheapest. Return economy flights typically cost £411 in December, and it’s only an hour behind GMT at this time of year, so your holiday will be jet-lag free.
Most visitors flock to the isle of Sal or Boa Vista to flop on white-sand beaches. Sal’s lively resort town, Santa Maria, has plenty of beach bars and restaurants, and watersports galore. Boa Vista also has miles of powder-soft beaches where you can learn to surf, windsurf, kiteboard or dive to wrecks. Its main town is low-key Sal Rei.
If you’re lucky, you might spot dolphins on a boat trip (humpback whales can be seen in March and April, and loggerhead turtles from June to September).
Tui flies direct to Sal from Gatwick, Birmingham, East Midlands, Bristol, Manchester and Newcastle, and will launch flights to Boa Vista next year.
Find package deals in Cape Verde with Tui (Jet2holidays only offers short-haul packages).
Thailand
December high: 31°C
Winter is the best time of year to visit Thailand, where the weather is cooler and a lot less damp and sticky than during the monsoon months.
When we compared the cost of flights, hotels, eating out and exchange rates, Thailand was one of the long-haul destinations where your pound would go furthest. A bottle of beer is £2.80 on the west coast island of Phuket, and a three-course meal with wine is around £30 per person, according to the Post Office’s 2023 holiday money report. You can expect even more bang for your baht when you veer away from tourist hotspots – a pad thai will typically cost you 50 baht (£1.14) from a street food cart in Bangkok.
The starting point for most trips is Bangkok, which offers a humid, heady mix of temples, street markets and air-conditioned shopping malls. Thailand’s tropical, forest carpeted islands are in the south: palm-fringed Koh Samui, Ko Phangan and Koh Tao are off the east coast, and more upmarket Phuket and Krabi off are the west coast. In the north, Chiang Mai’s Buddhist temples, jungle-covered national parks and traditional hill villages await.
Considering going all-inclusive? When we compared the cost of an all-inclusive package deal or DIY holiday in 10 popular destinations, Phuket was one of the few places where organising your own holiday was cheaper because hotels and restaurants offer great value.
Find package deals in Thailand with Tui.
Florida
December high: 24°C
Hurricane season is over by December, which is typically one of the sunshine state’s driest and coolest months, but you can still expect highs in the mid-20s. You’ll avoid the sultry summer heat in family favourite Orlando, where theme parks are in full festive mode in the run-up to Christmas.
Soak up the sunshine while zipping around the Everglades wetlands in an airboat, spotting manatees off Daytona Beach or seeing how the other half lives along Fort Lauderdale’s canals. In Miami, enjoy white-sand beaches and a taste of Cuba in Little Havana.
We found that Florida is also pretty good value compared with other winter sun destinations – as long as you skip Disney World and avoid the school holidays. A glass of wine typically costs £5 in Orlando and a three-course dinner for two with a bottle of wine costs around £65 (it averages at double that in New York – £150).
Find package deals in Florida with Tui.
Weather data taken from weather2travel.com
Source link : https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/where-is-hot-december-europe-long-haul-aFoHy8J3Mijy
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Publish date : 2023-12-07 08:00:00
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