Bed and Breakfast accommodation is very common and popular in the UK. Traditionally, it involves a short term stay in a private home although these days many guesthouses use the term to attract travellers looking to experience what Bed & Breakfast have to offer. If you are travelling and you have never experienced the services of a B&B, you may find it very unique and homely. Travellers or guests are usually accommodated in private rooms with private bathrooms although sometimes you may have to share a bathroom with another guest. En suite rooms are also quite common in certain areas where there are several competing houses. Breakfast is usually served in the morning and you are told when you can come out to have breakfast. However, there are differences depending on the owners and what they offer.
Many B&Bs are operated by home owners as a primary or secondary source of income. Sometimes the owners may hire staff to help with cooking and cleaning but with most of the smaller ones, the owners do all the cleaning and cooking.
Staying at a B&B can sometimes offer better personalised services than staying at a hotel. In many cases, it is much cheaper and you get more for your money. If you’re visiting seaside towns or some rural areas in the UK, you will most probably find more Bed & Breakfast properties there. Other tourist cities and towns such as Edinburgh also have a very high concentration of these properties.
Most B&Bs are small so if you’re planning to use one make sure to make reservations reasonably well in advance of your travel date. Things like time of year and location play an important role in room availability. For example, in the summer many seaside B&Bs are usually full and you have to book in advance. Many of the properties now belong to associations and have a website where you can find out more about their services and availability of rooms. Sometimes calling the owners is the only way to make sure that you get the most up to date information available.
Travel guides are a great source of information on finding bed and breakfast accommodation in the UK. Properties in most of the major cities, seaside and rural towns such London, Bath, Skegness, Blackpool, Cornwall, Cardiff, Edinburgh, etc are listed with some basic information about what is on offer. You can also visit the websites of the various associates that many B&Bs are members of. Another excellent way to locate suitable properties is to use a search engine such as Google or Yahoo and do a search specifying a town or city that you’re interested in. For example, you can search for “bed and breakfast Cambridge”. This will show you a list of websites with information about properties in the Cambridge area.
There are also websites that feature reviews of various services online. These sites are very helpful if you’re looking for information about particular bed and breakfast properties. Online discussion forums about travel are also a good source of information. But if you have friends and associates who have been to the place where you want to go, contact them first for some ideas and advice.