Ask how far the park actually is from the beach or the coast, in minutes rather than vague terms like "nearby". A ten-minute drive and a forty-minute drive are both sometimes described the same way in marketing copy, so it's worth checking a map or asking directly if walking to the coast matters to your plans.

Self-catering is the biggest single saving available. A static caravan holiday, with its own kitchen, means you're choosing when to cook and when to treat yourselves to eating out, rather than paying restaurant prices for every meal of the trip by default. For a family or group of any size, this alone tends to be the single biggest saving compared with a hotel-based break, where every meal usually comes at hotel prices.

For the caravan itself, most static units come with a cooker, fridge and basic kitchen equipment, but tea towels, washing-up liquid and bin bags are worth throwing in your bag rather than assuming they'll be there. A torch is genuinely useful for evening walks back from the clubhouse, and a few games or a pack of cards cover the odd wet afternoon without anyone reaching for a screen.

There isn't one single answer to how far ahead you should book, because it depends heavily on when you actually want to go.

There's also a cost angle to booking early, separate from availability. Parks often price the same week differently depending on how far out you book and how full that week already is, so an early booking for a peak week can work out better value than trying to catch a late deal that never quite materialises for the exact dates you need.

A hotel stay suits a different kind of trip. If you want your meals cooked and cleared away without any thought, and you'd rather not do any washing up on Tingdene Holiday Parks at all, that's a fair trade for a smaller room. Hotels also tend to sit centrally in towns and cities, so if your break is built around walking to restaurants, shops and evening entertainment on foot, that convenience counts for a lot.