Scotland

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Accommodation

Britain has scores of upmarket hotels, ranging from bland business-oriented places to plush country mansions, as well as budget accommodation in B&Bs, guest houses and youth hostels. Nearly all tourist offices will book rooms for you, although the fee for this service can vary. In some areas you will pay a deposit that's deducted from your first night's bill (usually 10 percent), in others the office will take a percentage or flat-rate commission - on average around £3. Another useful service operated by the majority of tourist offices is the "Book-a-bed-ahead" service, which locates accommodation in your next port of call - again for a charge of about £3, though the service is sometimes free.

Hotels and B&Bs

To help you in your choice of accommodation, a nationwide system for grading hotel and B&Bs has been adopted by the British Tourist Authority and the various private organizations which classify accommodation. Hotels are graded by stars, with five stars being the top rank, and B&Bs by diamonds with additional gold and silver awards for those that achieve distinction.

Though there's not a hard and fast correlation between standards and price, you'll probably be paying in the region of £50-60 per night for a double room at a one-star hotel (breakfast included), rising to around £100 in a three-star and from around £200 for a five-star - in London you pay twice that. In some larger towns and cities you'll find that the larger hotels often offer cut-price deals on Saturdays and Sundays to fill the rooms vacated by the week's business trade, but these places tend to be soulless multinational chain operations. If you have money to throw around, stay in a nicely refurbished old building - Britain's historic towns are chock-full of top-quality old coaching inns and similar ancient hostelries, while out in the countryside there are numerous converted mansions and manor houses, often with brilliant restaurants attached.

At the lower end of the scale, it's sometimes difficult to differentiate between a hotel and a B&B. At their most basic, these places - often known as guest houses in resorts and other tourist towns - are ordinary private houses with a couple of bedrooms set aside for paying guests and a dining room for the consumption of a rudimentary breakfast. At their best, however, B&Bs offer rooms as well furnished as those in hotels costing twice as much, delicious home-prepared breakfasts and an informal hospitality that a larger place couldn't match. As a guideline on costs, you should be able to find a one-diamond place for under £40 per night for a double room and, though the sky is the limit at the top end of the scale, it is possible to stay in some four-diamond places for as little as £70 - farmhouse B&Bs are especially good value. As many B&Bs, even the pricier ones, have a very small number of rooms, you should certainly book a place as far in advance as possible, especially if you're travelling on your own. Finally, don't assume that a B&B is no good if it's ungraded. There are so many B&Bs in Britain that the grading inspectors can't possibly keep track of them all, and in the rural backwaters some of the most enjoyable accommodation is to be found in welcoming and beautifully set houses whose facilities may technically fall short of official standards.

Accommodation prices

Throughout this guide, hotel and B&B accommodation is priced according to the lowest price you could expect to pay per night in that establishment for a double room in high season.

Hostels, student halls and camping barns

The Youth Hostels Association (YHA) network consists of over 230 properties in England and Wales, with the Scottish Youth Hostels Association (SYHA) responsible for around 80 properties in Scotland. Both are affiliated to Hostelling International (HI) and offer anything from bunk-bed accommodation in single-sex dormitories to B&B in double and family rooms, and in cities the facilities are often every bit as good as some hotels. Indeed, although a few places are spartan establishments of the sort traditionally associated with the wholesome, fresh-air ethic of the first hostels, most have moved well away from the old-fashioned, institutional ambience, and boast cafés, laundry facilities, internet access, entertainment and bike rental.

If you aren't already a member of Hostelling International, you can join through the YHA or SYHA by writing to the head office of either or in person at any affiliated hostel. Membership costs £6.25 per year for under-18s, £12.50 for others.

Prices at most youth hostels are around £7 per night for under-18s and £10 for the over-18s. Students aged 18-25 can get a £1 reduction on production of a valid student card. Length of stay is normally unlimited and the hostel warden will provide a linen sleeping bag for a small charge. The cost of hostel meals is low: breakfast is £3.30, a packed lunch £2.90 or £3.80, and evening meals start at £4.90. Nearly all hostels have kitchen facilities for those who prefer self-catering.

At any time of year it's best to book your place well in advance, and it's essential at Easter, from May to August and at Christmas. Most hostels accept payment by Mastercard or Visa, with those that don't, you should confirm your booking in writing, with payment, at least seven days before arrival. Bookings made less than seven days in advance will be held only until 6pm on the day of arrival. If you're tempted to turn up on the spur of the moment, bear in mind that very few are open year-round, many are closed at least one day a week, even in high season, and several have periods during which they take bookings from groups only. We have indicated the months during which individual hostels are closed, but to give the full details of opening times within this guide would be impossibly unwieldy, so always phone to check - we've given the number for every hostel mentioned. Most hostels are closed from 10am to 5pm, with an 11.30pm curfew, although all seven of the London hostels offer 24-hour access.

At best, independent hostels, which are more likely to be found in town centres than in the backwoods, offer facilities commensurate with those of the YHA and SYHA places, and at a lower price. However, many of these hostels make their money by over-cramming their rooms with beds, kitchens are often inadequate or non-existent and washing facilities can be similarly poor. That said, a lot of people find the lack of curfews and lockouts ample compensation. A useful publication to have is the annually updated Independent Hostel Guide (£4.95), published by The Backpackers Press.

Some cities also have YMCA and YWCA hostels, though these are only worth considering if you're staying for at least a week, in which case you can get discounts on rates that otherwise are no better than budget B&Bs.

In university towns you should be able to find out-of-term accommodation in the student halls, usually one-bedded rooms either with their own or shared bathrooms. In some instances, this may be the only budget accommodation on offer in the centre of town. All the useful university addresses are given in the guide.

In the wilder parts of Britain, such as the north Pennines, Snowdonia, Dartmoor and Exmoor, the YHA and SYHA also administer some basic accommodation for walkers in camping barns. Holding up to twenty people, these agricultural outbuildings are often unheated and are very sparsely furnished, with wooden sleeping platforms - or bunks if you're lucky - a couple of tables, a toilet and a cold-water supply, but they are weatherproof, extremely good value (from £4/night) and perfectly situated for walking tours. You do not have to be an HI member to stay in any of these. Similar barns, often called bunkhouses, are run by private individuals in these areas - the useful ones are mentioned in the guide.

Youth Hostel Associations

USA

Hostelling International-American Youth Hostels (HI-AYH) 733 15th St NW, Suite 840, Washington, DC 20005 tel 202/783-6161, www.hiayh.org.

CANADA

Hostelling International-Canadian Hostelling Association Suite 400, 205 Catherine St, Ottawa, ON K2P 1C3 tel 613/237-7884 or 800/663-5777, www.hihostels.ca.

AUSTRALIA

Australian Youth Hostels Association Level 3, 10 Mallet St, Camperdown, NSW 2050 tel 02/9565 1699, www.yha.org.au.

NEW ZEALAND

Youth Hostels Association of New Zealand PO Box 436, Christchurch 1 tel 03/379 9970, www.yha.co.nz.

ENGLAND AND WALES

Youth Hostels Association (YHA) Trevelyan House, 8 St Stephen's Hill, St Albans, Herts AL1 2DY tel 0870/870 8808, www.yha.org.uk.

SCOTLAND

Scottish Youth Hostel Association 7 Glebe Crescent, Stirlling FK8 2JA tel 0870/155 3255, www.syha.org.uk.

IRELAND

An Óige 61 Mountjoy St, Dublin 7 tel 01/830 4555, www.irelandyha.org.

Youth Hostel Association of Northern Ireland 22 Donegal Rd, Belfast BT12 5JN tel 01232/324733, www.hini.org.uk.

Camping and caravanning

There are hundreds of campsites in Britain, charging from £5 per tent per night to around £12 for the plushest sites, with amenities such as laundries, shops and sports facilities. Some hostels have small campsites on their property, charging half the indoor overnight fee. In addition to these official sites, farmers may offer pitches for as little as £3 per night, but don't expect tiled bathrooms and hair dryers for that kind of money. Even farmers without a reserved camping area may let you pitch in a field if you ask first, possibly for free; setting up a tent without asking is an act of trespass, which will not be well received. Free camping is illegal in national parks and nature reserves.

The problem with many campsites in the most popular parts of rural Britain - especially near the coast - is that tents have to share the space with caravans. Every summer the country's byways are clogged by migrations of these cumbersome trailers, which are still far more numerous than camper vans in Britain. The great majority of caravans, however, are permanently moored at their sites, where they are rented out to families for self-catering holidays, and the ranks of nose-to-tail trailers in the vicinity of most of Britain's best beaches might make you think that half the population shacks up in a caravan for the midsummer break.

Detailed, annually revised guides to Britain's camping and caravan sites include the British Tourist Authority's Caravan and Camping Parks in Britain (£5.99), which lists graded sites, and Cade's Camping, Touring and Motor Caravan Site Guide (£4.99), published by Marwain.

Self-catering accommodation

There are thousands of BTA-approved properties for rent by the week, ranging from city penthouses to secluded cottages. The least you can expect to pay for four-berth self-catering accommodation in low season would be around £190 per week, but in summer for something attractive - such as a small house near the West Country moors - you should budget for around £450 upwards.

Every regional tourist board has details of cottage rentals in its area. Alternative sources of information on all types of self-catering accommodation, from canal boats to lighthouses, are Dalton's Weekly (available from most newsagents) and the Sunday newspapers; and of course most travel agents can offer a range of self-catering holiday packages.