Self Catering Accommodation across The UK and Europe @explorethecountry.com

Cottage Holidays, cottages4you & the Holiday Cottage Database

Cottage Holidays - where you relax at your own pace without having others organise your daily routine.

Don't take as long as we did to discover the Ultimate Cottage Holiday Experience...

It took us 25 years to discover Holiday Cottages...

Having taken regular vacations in the UK from 1980 during which we had experienced package tours, hotels, and bed and breakfast accommodation it was not until 2005 that we discovered Self Catering Cottage Holidays.

We arranged our 2005 holiday accommodation online with various holiday cottage providers and discovered to our surprise a whole new holiday experience. Stress-free days unshackled by arrangements made by others, having the total privacy of our own accommodation for the duration of the stay and being able to set our own pace transformed the holiday experience to a level we had not known before.

We discovered that one international provider of self catering cottages stood out above all the others. Cottages4You which has been in the business of providing cottage holidays to hundreds of thousands of satisfied customers for more than twenty years. With more than 9,000 properties throughout the British Isles and more than 13,000 properties in the UK, France, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, cottages4you maintain a database of the largest selection of privately owned, regularly inspected cottages.

It's the quality of these properties that sets cottages4you apart.

All properties are regularly inspected by the team of regional managers and you can rest assured that only the best quality properties are on offer.

We offer eight different ways to find your ideal cottage quickly and easily, one consists of indexed pages of towns and villages in England, Scotland, and Wales where you select a location and take you to a display of all cottages within 25 miles radius. Another way to find your cottage is from the hundreds of photographs we have taken of various parts of the UK that we rate highly where again you can open a display of all cottages within 25 miles radius of where the photograph was taken.

Throughout our website you will find pages full of information designed to help you plan your holiday plus hundreds of links to other websites that we have researched and identified as providing a depth of local information. We even have a page dedicated to London.

Check locations we rate highly.

Norfolk Cottages @explorethecountry.com

Woodlands - Costessy - near Norwich - Norfolk

We wanted to share our experience with others looking for that special Cottage Holiday Experience in the UK and Europe, so we joined forces with cottages4you by restructuring our popular travel related website to promote bookings of their huge range of cottages across Britain and Europe.

Cottages4you is a trading name of Holiday Cottages Group Limited

As a result we offer cottages at the same standard prices as cottages4you and we have developed a unique range of search options which interface directly with their online booking system.

There is nothing quite like relaxing at your own pace in your English Country Cottage. If you pick the best location your can explore the surrounding countryside, its towns and picturesque villages to your heart's content and experience the richness of the culture and history that is uniquely Britain.

In Partnership with Cottages4you we give you the tools to research and put together your own Cottage Holiday online.

If you prefer to book by phone in the UK, choose the cottage you wish to book then dial Cottages4you on their UK phone number 0870 192 1206.

Click here if you are dialling from outside the UK for the international phone numbers.

You will be speaking directly with one of the internet marketing people at the Head Office of Cottages4you in Barnoldswick Lancashire where they employ more than 250 people.

We have used our personal experience exploring the UK to create a website containing more than 500 pages of information and links to other quality websites to help you plan your dream holiday.

Our pages are designed to help you identify the locations that interest you then drill down for detailed information about a location and the area around it.

We give you online access to slide shows of hundreds of photographs that we have taken of choice locations throughout the UK.

Once you identify a location you would like to explore, click on the link for Cottages and you will move to a display of all cottages within 25 miles. Choose then book your cottage securely online directly with cottages4you via our website.

The AA online Road Maps & Route Planner enables you to calculate the best routes to take, distances and times and even print out a detailed set of instructions for navigating your way around.

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Our Experience:

Self Catering Cottages provide the opportunity to experience life in your quality assured English Cottage in an English Village or the English Countryside in stark contrast to Hotels or Bed and Breakfast accommodation where despite the excellent service you get you are aware that your daily routine is organised by other people.

Arranging a self Catering Cottage online through our website directly with Cottages4You is as simple and straightforward as booking a flight online with one of the major airlines. In most instances the only contact we have with the owners is a brief phone call a few days prior to arrival to find where the key is to be picked up.

We strongly recommend that you deal only with a reputable organisation

We have organised Self Catering Cottages directly with the owners and unless you know the owners and the cottage this is not something we would recommend. We had to forward bank drafts to make payment and undertake to clean the property thoroughly on departure in order to not forfeit our bond. One cottage we discovered on arrival was over the top of a wet fish shop and we had to cope with the smell of fish for the week of our stay.

We rate cottages4you the market leader in the UK when it comes to providing quality self catering cottages. The service we received from cottages4you and the quality of the cottages we have hired during our visits to the UK so impressed us that we confidently promote them as the leading provider of self catering cottages.

We use Cottages4You for our holiday accommodation in the UK and have always found their cottages to be clean and well presented.

We confidently recommend Cottages4You for relaxed, comfortable, stress-free accommodation away from home.

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Comments from cottages4you...

On a cottage holiday, the adventure starts the moment you get into your car and start your break.

We'll prepare your accommodation and give you directions showing how to get there, the rest is up to you! You have the freedom to tailor your own break. Freedom is a unique part of a cottage holiday experience, and for many people it's a great excuse to spend time exploring the area and meeting the friendly locals!

When you reach your property you'll find a guide to events and places of interest, and the owner or key-holder will be close at hand if you need any help or advice.

It's our quality that sets us apart

All of our properties are regularly inspected by our team of regional managers and you can rest assured that only the best quality properties are on offer.

Arriving and departing

Most weekly bookings run from Saturday to Saturday, unless the property indicates otherwise. Where accepted, 2 night breaks start on a Friday or Saturday, 3 night breaks on a Saturday and 4 night midweek breaks start on a Monday.

When you have paid for you holiday in full, you will, be sent details of how to find your cottage, and where to collect your keys on arrival. It's best to advise the owner or caretaker of your estimated arrival time, which should normally be after 3pm. On your day of departure, we ask you to leave your cottage by 10.00am so that it can be cleaned for the next arrivals.

Gardens & Parking Facilities

Many cottages have gardens where you can enjoy peace and privacy. Most properties also offer space for off-road parking; you'll find details of this in the full cottage details.

Cleaning

All cottages are cleaned between lets, meaning that all you need to do when you arrive is unpack, put the kettle on and explore your cottage!!! There is no extra charge for this service unless extra heavy cleaning is required after you leave, or you do not leave the property and it's contents as you find them.

Bookings by Phone:

Select your cottage and get the Property Reference number online, then phone and make your booking

- From within the UK call Cottages4you direct on their UK phone number: 0870 192 1206.

- If you are calling from outside England use the Country Code plus 1282 846763. From New Zealand we would call 0044 1282 846763.

OPENING HOURS:

For UK cottage holidays
Sunday - Friday	9am - 9pm
Saturday	9am - 7pm

For overseas cottage holidays
Monday - Friday	9am - 7.30pm
Saturday	9am - 5.30pm
Sunday	9am - 6pm

If you need further help click here or email us direct: info@explorethecountry.com

Terms for changes to your booking and cancellations

You name the county - we've got the UK covered with quality assured, professionally managed Holiday Cottages:

Cottages in Bedfordshire, Cottages in Buckinghamshire, Cottages in Cambridgeshire, Cottages in Cheshire, Cottages in Cornwall, Cottages in The Cotswolds, Cottages in Cumbria, Cottages in Derbyshire, Cottages in Devon, Cottages in Dorset, Cottages in Durham, Cottages in County Durham, Cottages in East Sussex, Cottages in Essex, Cottages in Gloucestershire, Cottages in Hampshire, Cottages in Herefordshire, Cottages in Hertfordshire, Cottages in Isle of Wight, Cottages in Kent, Cottages in Lancashire, Cottages in Leicestershire, Cottages in Lincolnshire, Cottages in Norfolk, Cottages in Northamptonshire, Cottages in Northumberland, Cottages in North Yorkshire, Cottages in Nottinghamshire, Cottages in Oxfordshire, Cottages in Shropshire, Cottages in Somerset, Cottages in Staffordshire, Cottages in Suffolk, Cottages in Surrey, Cottages in Warwickshire, Cottages in West Sussex, Cottages in Wiltshire, Cottages in Worcestershire, Cottages in Scotland

Plus we offer: Cottages in Wales, Cottages in Scotland, Cottages in Ireland, Cottages in France, Cottages in Portugal, and Cottages in Spain.

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