Alternative winter sun: Why surging flight prices have me sticking to short-haul this season

As demand for a winter sun holiday goes through the roof, affordable travel fans are having to look beyond the obvious, says Lucy Thackray

Krabi, Thailand: Lucy’s port of call for winter sun (Getty/iStock)

Hi, I’m Lucy and I’m addicted to winter sun. (All together: “Hi, Lucy.”)

This is just one of the types of holiday we got used to having prior to the pandemic, isn’t it? Picking a miserable, deepest-winter week in our diary – I like exactly a month before Christmas, when the UK is dark at 4pm, wet and cold but not yet delightfully cosy and festive – and browsing for a vivid long-haul holiday, with sunshine and swims on tap.

This was an annual ritual of mine. Until, that is, the lockdown winters of 2020 and 2021 made me go cold turkey in more ways than a Boxing Day sandwich. I had to get comfortable with those horrid British November evenings, the ones when you look up from your laptop only to see that it is already, surely, bedtime. Dark, long nights with only Bake Off and a hot chocolate to warm you up.