The Hour

The recession doesn’t have to stop Scots holidaying abroad according to top travel writer Katie Wood.

The holiday guru cites Turkey as the most popular destination at the moment with Eastern European countries in general providing great holidays at reasonable prices.

Although she admits many may prefer to look for something closer to home, Wood cites the great climate and delicious food as being two of the main factors taking people to countries such as Turkey, Bulgaria and Czech Republic.

She said: “Number one at the moment is Turkey. It’s just flying off the shelves, there’s flights from all the Scottish airports. It’s a really good destination when you get there, there’s good food, great weather.

“Turkey’s doing very well, Egypt’s doing very well, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Eastern Europe.”

For people searching for the perfect budget holiday Wood advises that the internet is a good tool, but you don’t have to do all the hard work searching.

She added: “Well most people turn to the web and nine times out of ten they think that that’s going to give them the cheapest bargains that they’ll ever find.

“The actual answer is not necessarily, if you have a good independent travel agent quite often they can come up with the best bargains and they use the web. They also buy off the web, but they also save you hours and hours of research. The web is a good place to start but it’s not the be all and end all.”