Aha, this is a question I can relate to because I go on holiday a lot on my own and I was interviewed by the BBC on this very topic. When you a book a package holiday some tour operators add on a single person supplement which can considerably increase the price of the holiday.

Expensive holidays for single people

Here’s a question from a Travel Rants reader.

My wife passed away last year and I finally built up the courage to travel on my own. I have always wanted to visit Sardinia and I was astonished to see the price of a holiday increase from £299 to nearly £500 because I was travelling alone. Why are holidays for single people so expensive?

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Every day I receive a bunch of emails from readers asking travel consumer questions, so I thought I would mention a few of them on the blog along with my reply. At the moment I am receiving a lot of questions on travel insurance, and I am not surprised, it can be confusing for holidaymakers.

Travel insurance for pre-existing medical conditions

Here’s a question from one Travel Rants reader

I took out travel insurance about 6 months ago and one of the questions was have I ever been diagnosed with high blood pressure. At that time I had not but within the last month my doctor informs me I do have high blood pressure. I am not taking any medication for it. Do you think I should inform the travel insurance company since my holiday is in June 2011?

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It’s not always easy to have some ‘sit back and relax’ time when flying with no-frill budget airlines. Flustered already by the time you find a seat, high-volume pilot announcements are followed by the cabin crew safety dance and what generally tends to be an unnecessarily noisy food and drinks service.

No frill budget airline experience

Then the Duty Free parade begins, apparently a final opportunity to bag J-Lo’s latest fragrance, some sickly toffee flavoured vodka or 200 Lambert & Butlers for your Gran. When you thought there could be nothing else standing between you and a spot of the old shut-eye, its scratch card time!

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The other night I was having a chat with Kevin May, editor of Tnooz and I asked him about innovation in travel, or the lack of it in Britain. As I wrote a while back there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of innovation in travel when you compare it with other industries.

Clones aren’t innovative

A lot of the startups I’ve seen appear in the last six to twelve months have really been clones of other hotel, flight search sites, with a few additional features added in to make them appear innovative. There’s nothing that I have come across that has made me think wow, this is going to make my holiday booking or travel experience so much better.

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I really did not want to fly to my holiday destination this year because of the issues I had last year. It has been nearly a year since I travelled abroad, which is a long time for me – the thought of another trip being cancelled, huge delays, or stranded abroad really put me off the idea. The need for a relaxing break and sunshine took over though.

Planned to holiday in the UK

In January I decided I was going to spend my holidays in the UK this year, but when I sat down and looked at the cost, and the fact that our weather is so unpredictable I made the decision to fly to Portugal for 7 days of relaxation. Hopefully it will be a relaxing holiday.

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