Hotel Hostal Carel (El Médano, Spain)

This place is so ridiculously close to the airport that it's tempting to forget about transport, pack your bag ... and stroll along the beach to check-in! It's that close!

Accommodation is impressively well maintained and clean. Rooms are of a decent size. You can even get English language programmes on the telly - and the Wi-Fi is great. How good is that?!

The hostal is very laid back and relaxing in a town which, itself, is laid back anyway. It's about 200 m downhill (not too steep) to the beach, shops, restaurants and supermarkets. The bar serves good value food and drinks. Prices are obviously caught in a time-warp but, sssh … don't tell the owners! Surely, relaxed budget holidays in the sun can't come any better than this!

The reason why this little town isn't a resort to be reckoned with is the proximity to the airport and the accompanying noise. This stops at night though. There can still be some street noise to contend with. In this respect, higher floors are better for you.

El Medano hosts windsurfing and kite flying festivals -and you can easily understand why. It can get very windy and the sand can get, literally, everywhere! Even in this heat, you need to close windows, because of the effects of wind and sand.

This is a wonderfully good value, basic, hostal … but it does lack air conditioning in the rooms. Summer months - and there's plenty of them! -can be unbearably oppressive.