A Word From Alastair

I had a hellish self-catering holiday once, a pokey flat in Wales which I had assumed to be bigger, prettier and with views. Every inch of it was grim, from the electric fire to the nylon sheets. The place was mean-spirited, designed to screw every last penny out of us, for as little effort as possible. Our hearts sank lower and lower - and we left. I determined to tackle the problem one day, and Special Escapes is the result.

Our French Holiday Homes guide book has now blazed a trail and given readers a choice of gorgeous places to spend their precious holidays. We are doing the same in the UK, where there are thousands and thousands of holiday homes and hundreds of self-catering web sites to choose from - but how on earth do you know whom to trust?

Take the case of Amanda Craig, the journalist who was lured with her family to a seductively described holiday house in the Lot, in France. She wrote ‘My holiday hell in the land of plastic chairs’ in The Sunday Times. The family abandoned the expensive, plastic-furnished house after two days and wandered disconsolately back to Britain, saved - as it happens - from total despair by our French Hotels guide. If only, as she admits, she had known about our self-catering book.

So, your week in your own holiday home is precious; you cannot afford to get it wrong. With more and more of us choosing to stay in Britain for our holidays rather than risk delays and chaos on the way overseas, this is a good time to be helping you to find the right place. We have developed, much to our delight, a reputation for being totally trustworthy. And, just as importantly, we are known for our ‘taste’. It may not, to the relief of our readers, always be ‘good’ taste in the conventional sense, but it will always be interesting, often magnificent.

There are almost no other web sites that inspect and write about each place - those that do are run by agencies who make certain that guests never have any contact with owners. Most owners would prefer to know who they are letting into their house. For guests, getting a feel for the owners is a crucial part of knowing that you have made the right decision about your holiday.

We have consulted owners as far as possible to make certain that Special Escapes is easy to use and uncluttered by useless ‘features’.

I look forward to hearing from you,

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