Caribbean for less than £800
There are lots of deals around this time of year for the Caribbean. The peak top-price winter season is over, the scorching hot clammy summer has yet to set in and the hurricane season is way down the line (not till autumn). Now's the time to grab a deal to the Caribbean.
• Grenada is a good choice if you want somewhere relaxed and unglitzy without all the dressing up for dinner nonsense you find on some other Caribbean islands such as Barbados. Just Grenada (01373 814214) has one-week self-catering holidays at the Blue Horizons Cottage Hotel starting at £749 per person including charter flights on JMC and transfers if you leave on Wednesday.
• Don't write off Jamaica as too violent, or too full of hedonistic all-inclusive hotels which are cut off from real Jamaican life. Book a cheap package that doesn't include meals and use shared taxis to get out to local restaurants or just buy spicy jerk chicken straight off the big oil drum barbecues on the streets with a can of ice-cold Red Stripe beer. If you get out of the hotel ghettos, Jamaica with its reggae beach parties and lively beaches can be a cheap and exciting experience. Lateoffers@holidayleaders.com has one-week deals to Jamaica for £697 including flights from Manchester and accommodation at the Golden Seas Beach Resort on the beach Oracabessa, St Mary.
•If you like doing your own thing, get hold of a good independent guide book to check out accommodation (such as the Rough Guide to Cuba - which was this week shortlisted for best guidebook 2001 in the Oscars of travel writing, the Travelex Travel Writers' Awards) and book a flight to Cuba.
Trailfinders (020 7937 5400) has returns from Heathrow to Havana (via Amsterdam on KLM) for £388 return before 6 April.
Something for less than £600
• Are today's Oscars making your feet itch for California? Bon Voyage (0800 316 0194) has fly-drive holidays on direct BA flights from Gatwick to San Diego for £585 including hotels, car hire and return flights between 18 and 30 April. The beaches around San Diego are great for surfing, and playing beach dude. It's just a short hop over the border to Mexico to Tijuana if you want some hot nightlife.
•Yes, those really cheap deals for Dubai are cropping up again which means the scorching Middle Eastern summer is almost upon us. If you can bear the heat (between 25C and 36C degrees in June) you can snap up a sun, sea and shopping trip to Dubai for £399 including six nights at the luxury Le Meridien hotel and return flights from Gatwick. Tradewinds (0870 751 0004). Applies 1 - 30 June.
• Jerusalem is back on the tourist map after the Foreign Office relaxed its advice against Britons visiting that part of Israel. It's an interesting short-break destination if you want something a bit different from European street café life (Dead Sea Scrolls, the Mount of Olives, walks round the Old City) and is less than five hours' flight away. Three-night packages through Superstar Holidays (0645 125847) cost £327 including B&B and flights from Stansted on departures next week.
Family escapes less than £300
•You can still get away during the school Easter holidays to a Gran Dorado holiday centre (a Dutch and German competitor of Center Parcs). Travelling by ferry from Dover or Folkestone on 13 April (Good Friday) you can get a four-night break for £86 per person at a number of centres in Germany or Holland (based on four travelling). Price includes crossing and accommodation in self-catering holiday homes and unlimited use of indoor swimming pool complex. Amsterdam Travel Service (0870 727 5916).
•You can't get more child-friendly than the Spanish island of Menorca . Its restaurants are more fish fingers than tapas and high chairs sometimes outnumber grown-ups' ones. The beaches are sandy and the sea is calm and turquoise blue. About the only drawback at Easter can be the weather (18C is about as hot as it gets at this time, but at least there's no chance of baby getting burnt). Owners' Syndicate (020 7801 9804) has the Villas es Pedegral in Biniparrell from £300 per person per week including flights (based on eight people sharing). Available from 5 April.
• If you have a big family, holidays can be massively expensive so camping (however much you hated it in the scouts) suddenly becomes an attractive option. If you're not a great outdoors type, you can avoid all the hassle of putting up tents by hiring a luxury tent when you get there. French Life has one-week deals arriving 1 May in Brittany, Vendée or the south of France, sleeping up to six people for £125 per family including ferry crossing. Phone 08704 448484.
