Where we go in January, and why we stopped going to the Canaries

By Ruth Ardsley · 8 min read

For about eight years we did the same thing every January. Four hours to the Canaries, a week of reliable sun, back before anybody noticed we had gone. It is a good arrangement and we are not going to be sniffy about it.

What eventually got us was the sameness. Somewhere around the sixth year we realised we could not tell one trip from another, which is a strange thing to feel about a holiday.

The long-haul argument

The objection to going further in winter is the flight, and it is a real objection. Eleven hours is not nothing. What changed our minds was working out that we were taking the short trip twice a year and would rather take the long one once.

Where we landed

South Africa, in the end, and specifically the stretch of coast under the mountain west of Cape Town. It is summer there when it is filthy here, the exchange rate is kind, and the flight is overnight in a useful direction.

We spent most of the first trip in Camps Bay, which is a beach suburb with the mountain directly behind it, and we planned almost none of it well. Second time round we worked from a rundown of what to do in Camps Bay and it made a considerable difference, mostly by talking us out of things that would have eaten a day.

What it costs

More than the Canaries, less than you would think, and the gap narrows a lot if you go in their shoulder months rather than at Christmas.

Would we go back to the Canaries

Probably, eventually, when we want a week that requires no thought at all. There is a place for that. It is just not every January.