Oaklands Caravan Park

Golfers can swing their clubs in style with four courses and links in the local area, including the Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club, a host course for the British Open and the Ryder Cup. If this isn’t quite the kids’ cup of tea, the seaside resort of Lytham St Annes should be up their sandy street, with donkey rides, sand dunes to roll down and the Lytham St Annes Local Nature Reserve to explore – it was the first designated nature reserve in Lancashire and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Oaklands can be used as a base for exploring several towns and cities in Lancashire: you could croon to the Eric Morecambe statue on the seafront in Morecambe Bay, clink around the prison museum in Lancaster (if this scares the kids too much, there’s a maritime museum to bring them to as well), or chug along to the shops, theatres, cinemas and the Ribble Steam Railway at Preston. You’ll also be within reach of cantering, hiking or biking in the Forest of Bowland, the Beacon Fell Country Park or the lush landscapes of the Lake District. But natch the kids will be begging for Blackpool too: as well as the annual autumn illuminations, there’s enough to do here to keep them cartwheeling for ages – the famous Pleasure Beach theme park, Blackpool Beach and Blackpool Tower, and flying down the flumes at the Sandcastle Waterpark, the biggest indoor waterpark in the UK, should do for starters. Once they’ve dried off, a trip to Blackpool Zoo will keep them goggle-eyed, with over a thousand animals as well as a huge playbarn – and squishy sofas to sink into for the big folk…