How to holiday for free (if you know the year of the Battle of Culloden)

I've not long got back from a long weekend in West Sussex. There were six of us altogether; we shared a huge and rather luxurious converted barn (The Granary at Pitlands Barns), with three en-suite bedrooms and all mod cons. We had two pub lunches, two pub dinners, a takeaway Indian, coffee and cake, and copious amounts of alcohol. And the best bit? It didn't cost any of us a penny. 

Lounge at The Granary

Hallway at The Granary - you could hold a party here!

Chichester Cathedral

So how did we do it? Well, it's all down to my second love - quizzes. Lee and I have been regularly quizzing with two of the group that came away with us for nearly 20 years, and the other two joined us over ten years ago. We do a regular pub quiz together every Wednesday; we also take part in regional 'Big Quizzes' organised by our local newspaper, along with occasional wine and wisdom events and other quizzes in other pubs. As you can imagine, the more quizzes you go to, the more you learn (and, admittedly, the more you also forget). Over the years, our knowledge bank has grown, and we make a pretty good team. Our success also lies in our range - we have an equal match of genders, we have differing interests, and our ages span from forties to seventies, so we cover a range of different eras and specialist subjects. (When we first started, Lee and I were the 'young ones', able to answer questions on up-to-date music. Sadly, our music knowledge hasn't progressed along with our advancing years...) The result of this is that we win quizzes fairly often, and our wins paid for our holiday - and it wasn't the first one. 

Over the years, we've won a variety of things - mostly bottles of wine and the occasional box of chocolates. One of my favourite prizes came when four of us won a national quiz organised by the CSMA - we won a large Fortnum & Mason hamper and a £250 leisure break voucher. We travelled up to Ghyll Manor hotel in Sussex for the formal presentation of our prize, and snagged ourselves a free three-course lunch. We then returned for a night's B&B and a three-course dinner, courtesy of our leisure voucher. 

Another favourite prize, which we have won several times, is P&O ferry vouchers. The Big Quiz I mentioned earlier takes part in four locations across the county each year (we usually attend two or three but have been known to go to all four), followed by a county final. In the early days, there would be around 80 teams, and you would win a 5-day return crossing for each member of the team (that's one each for me and Lee) for coming as 'low' as sixth. Over the years, as the number of teams reduced, the prize became restricted to first place winners, and was 'demoted' to a day-trip. (Eventually, a year or so ago, P&O withdrew their sponsorship, but the Big Quiz has recently snared DFDS as sponsors, so I have high hopes again!) Regardless, we have come first or been high-enough placed over the years to have won a fair few ferry vouchers. And even when they were only day trips, we were able to swap two of them for a longer-duration return. We've used them to pay for our travel for numerous summer camping trips to France, a couple of day trips, a few Easter breaks and a long weekend in Bruges at Christmas. If I'm honest, using up a ferry voucher has actually been the reason behind (read 'excuse for') several of our shorter holidays...

A day trip to Boulogne many years ago!

Anyway, back to our long weekend. It dawned on us years ago that it was a bit of a waste putting our cash winnings at the end of a pub quiz back into our pockets. Anything we won would get swallowed back into everyday life and not really 'enjoyed'. And if you're going to win something, you should really enjoy the prize. So one of us came up with the genius idea of pooling our winnings and saving them each week, rather than splitting them up and taking them home. The idea was that when we'd saved enough, we would use them to do something special and treat ourselves, so that we felt like we'd really got the benefit of our prize money. In the meantime, we'd put the money into premium bonds in the optimistic hope that we might win a little extra to help us on our way (we haven't yet, sadly).

Our first trip was back in February 2013 - a visit to Ypres. I believe we paid for our own travel (although we probably used one of our ferry vouchers...), but our winnings paid for our hotel (the rather lovely Ariane) and all food and drinks. It was absolutely freezing but we had a lovely weekend, exploring Ypres, visiting the WW1 Passchendaele battlefield and cemetery (extremely moving), wandering around Lille on the way back and eating lots of lovely food. It gave us a taste of what we could do with our winnings (not to mention a much-needed 'adult' break from our lovely but exhausting children), and we were soon planning what we'd do when we'd saved up enough money to go away again. 

Menin Gate Memorial

Passchendaele

Freezing in Lille

It was October 2014 by the time we'd saved up enough. This time we decided to stay in the UK to avoid wasting our kitty money (or spending our own money) on travel. We plumped for the Cotswolds and booked a couple of nights in the lovely Falcon Inn in Painswick. We went for a long walk in the countryside and visited Gloucester (beautiful) and Cheltenham (disappointing), as well as drinking and eating out lots - all paid for again, of course.

Our room at The Falcon

View of Painswick from our room

Gloucester Cathedral

In April 2016, we went to Redditch with our winnings. Okay, that might seem like an odd destination, but we found a bargain break at the Southcrest Manor Hotel through Travelzoo. The hotel (and its food) turned out to be very nice. We also went out for a curry, had a pub lunch or two, went for a walk around Arrow Valley lake, explored Worcester and its cathedral, and visited Kenilworth Castle. Again, all paid for.

Our room at Southcrest Manor

Arrow Valley Lake

Kenilworth Castle

As you've no doubt gathered, our recent trip to Chichester was our fourth paid-for holiday: another much-needed break, where we came back no poorer than when we went away - always a bonus. Even better, we still have £500 in the kitty ready to put towards our next break. We're thinking possibly the Norfolk Broads. And, of course, first we will have to have the obligatory 'planning meeting', which involves dinner, drink, much discussion of where to go and when to go there, and no actual decision - followed by another planning meeting to continue the process. Not to mention lots of pub quizzes in the meantime to try to win the money. Life is tough...!