The best value Parkdean holiday parks, from real bookings

The table below ranks Parkdean's regions by what people paid per person per night, cheapest first, with the typical length of stay alongside. Use it as a shortlist: pick two or three from the top and price them up on the Parkdean site.

Lancashire is the cheapest region at £14 per person per night, with East Anglia and Lincolnshire, Scotland, and Northumberland and County Durham close behind at £16. The Lake District costs £31 and Dorset £25, and that is mostly down to lodges: more of the holidays booked there are lodges, which pulls the average up. If the Lake District is where you want to be, book a caravan there, since the lodges are what make it dear. Cornwall and the Isle of Wight are different. Both run to five-night stays where most regions run to four, so the nightly figure, £19 and £20, looks ordinary, but budget for the extra night.

These are the Parkdean parks booked most often through us, ranked by cost per person per night, cheapest at the top. Typical stays are four nights unless the table says otherwise. If the budget is doing the choosing, start with a park in the top half of the list and price that one up first.

Sandylands in Scotland is the value pick at £12 per person per night, followed by Highfield Grange in Essex at £13, then Southview in Lincolnshire and Torquay in Devon at £14. Trecco Bay in Wales is the park booked most often through us, and at £18 it costs about what a Parkdean holiday typically does, so its popularity is not costing you anything. Three parks are six-night stays: Lizard Point at £17, Lower Hyde at £20 and Holywell Bay at £22. Lower Hyde and Holywell Bay are already two of the dearer parks, and with two extra nights on top, a week there is the biggest bill on this page.

Accommodation type is the biggest single lever on a Parkdean price, bigger than the region or the park. The chart below gives the cost per person per night for each type, from a touring pitch up to a lodge. Settle this first.

A motorhome or touring pitch is £9 per person per night, an apartment £11, and a caravan or chalet £17. A lodge is £31, roughly twice a caravan, and caravans are the bulk of what people book. Do not add nights hoping the rate drops: two nights works out at £20 per person per night, three to seven at £19, and eight or more at £18. Choose where, what and when. How long barely matters.

Arrival month is the other big lever, and the one most people already suspect. The chart below gives the cost per person per night by the month the holiday starts, February through to December, from the holidays booked through us over the last year.

October is the cheapest month to arrive at £13 per person per night, then March at £14, November at £15 and September at £16. August is the dearest at £29, roughly double October, and December is nearly as dear at £28. If you can travel off-peak, book a spring or autumn arrival; it is the single biggest saving on this page. Families tied to the school holidays should skip this chart and work on the park and the accommodation instead, starting with the regions table above.