On the budget side, self-catering works in your favour with a bigger group. Cooking most meals in the caravan rather than eating out as a party of eight or ten keeps costs sensible, tingdeneholidayparks.com and splitting the shopping and cooking between the adults spreads both the effort and the spend. A shared static caravan holiday, or two units booked close together, usually works out considerably more cost-effective than the equivalent number of hotel rooms plus regular restaurant bills.

None of these questions take long to ask, and any decent holiday park will have straightforward answers ready. If a question gets dodged or fudged, that's often more useful information than the answer itself.

When you do search, look directly at park availability rather than only general search results, since some late deals or short breaks don't always surface through a general web search. Being flexible on which park you book, rather than fixed on one location, also widens what's on offer considerably. If your priority is getting away this weekend rather than a specific spot, checking two or three parks in the same general area rather than just one tends to turn something up.

If your break falls within school holidays, particularly the summer holidays or half terms, book as early as you reasonably can, ideally several months ahead. These are the weeks every family with school-age children is trying to book at the same time, so the best weeks, and often the more sought-after units within those weeks, go first. Waiting until a few weeks before a summer half term usually means choosing from whatever's left rather than what you'd actually prefer.

A hotel stay suits a different kind of trip. If you want your meals cooked and cleared away without any thought, and you'd rather not do any washing up on holiday at all, that's a fair trade for a smaller room. Hotels also tend to sit centrally in towns and cities, so if your break is built around walking to restaurants, shops and evening entertainment on foot, that convenience counts for a lot.

You can find out more via Yorkshire coast staycations.