Should we holiday in the UK?

We weigh up the pros and cons of the staycation in our debate

YES

Britain is marvellous, says Dan Linstead – editor of Wanderlust, the magazine for independent travellers

Writing this on a chilly, rain-lashed weekend in Windsor, it’s hard to ignore the trump card of holidays abroad: the weather. So let’s tackle it head-on. If you’re just after a suntan, I’ll happily bid you bon voyage. What’s more, if from time to time you feel the urge to marvel at a rainforest, wander a souk, or commune with a polar bear, I’m right behind you.

But I’d also urge you to explore Britain more often than you flit overseas, and more thoroughly. Forget the worthy-but-dull reasons – save money, save carbon emissions, yawn – and do it for the thrill of it.

Do it for the same reasons people flock here from Tokyo, Delhi and Des Moines: to explore ancient cities, hedgerowed lanes and wildly beautiful coastlines. We live on islands unmatched for history, culture and natural splendour, and sometimes it takes a foreign eye to remind us it is so. (How oddly apt it is that the American Bill Bryson should be President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England.) Do it because we live in a small land – you can get anywhere in a day – that we don’t know very well: for many southerners the wondrous Scottish Highlands are more foreign than Sydney.

Do the things you only do on holiday: hire a tandem, go skinny-dipping, potter round a castle, sprawl in a four-poster and have lobster and cake for tea (ideally on the same day).

Holidays are a state of mind, and holidays in Britain carry an additional blessing: hallelujah, you’re not a tourist! Instead of grappling with someone else’s culture, you’re exploring your own heartland.

Oh, and look – now even the sun’s come out.

NO

We’re better off going abroad, thinks Ed Grenby – editor of The Sunday Times Travel Magazine

Until somebody builds a Great Pyramid of Peterborough or a Colosseum at Frome (note to Branson: don’t get any ideas), those who want to see the world are, regrettably, going to have to get out there and actually see the world.

Impressive as Britain undoubtedly is, St Augustine had it pretty much nailed when he declared the planet “a book, and those who do not travel read only one page”. True, the fourth-century theologian probably wasn’t talking about £19 specials to Prague (although you never know, because he did once famously pray “God grant me chastity… but not yet” – which suggests he would have fitted in fine with the stag parties).

Of course, St A wasn’t worrying too much about his carbon sandalprint – but perhaps you shouldn’t either. The most oft-cited estimate is that planes account for less than two per cent of global CO2 emissions; this doesn’t mean they’re not a significant pollutant, just that there are others, too – ones you might more happily cut out of your life. After all, foreign travel at least has the benefit of putting much-needed money into sometimes fragile local economies; could the same be said of your hope-nobody-sees-me half-mile drive down to Tesco for a pint of milk?

And just try to imagine a summer where we do all holiday at home; there simply wouldn’t be the room(s). There aren’t 60 million hotel beds in Britain, so we’d all just have to swap houses – including, yes, un-maid-serviced bathrooms – with each other. And did somebody say “chance of rain”?

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