If you can’t decide where to go on holiday this summer, ask an expert. The travel industry is full of people trying to persuade you to go to this hotel or that resort. But what do they do when they’re spending their own hard-earned cash? We asked some of Britain’s brightest travel brains: what did you do last summer?

Ken McCulloch
The hotelier

Ken launched the Malmaison chain of city-centre “design hotels” and is the founder and owner of the Columbus Hotel in Monaco, where he now lives, and the low-cost Dakota Hotel in Nottingham

“THE HOTEL business is very intense, so my wife and I tend to have escapes rather than proper holidays. We’re lucky living in Monaco, because we can be in Milan in three hours or drive up to Lyons or Car- cassonne. One of my favourite places is La Colombe d’Or, in St-Paul-de-Vence, near Nice — it’s the meaning of life. I’ve been going there for 20 years and it has never changed. You eat on this beautiful terrace, or inside, surrounded by original works of art by Picasso, Braque and Matisse — they used to paint for their supper.

Last year, we discovered Castello di Reschio, on the border between Umbria and Tuscany. It’s the most beautiful private estate, set among hills, with a series of 16th-century farmhouses that are slowly being restored by the owner, Count Antonio Bolze. We took a house for a week and it was fantastic, waking up to see the lavender, and mist in the valleys, then going for amazing walks.

It’s a very high-end place and doesn’t feel at all like an estate. You are left alone, but there is a five-star concierge service you can call on at any time. We used it a few times to get shopping delivered, and on our last night we had friends over and got in a cook. It was a totally relaxing week — drinking good wine, reading lots of books and walking in the countryside.”

How to do it: La Colombe d’Or (00 33 4 93 32 80 02, www.la-colombe-dor.com) has doubles for £200, B&B. A three-course meal costs about £50pp, excluding wine. BMI (0870 607 0555, www.flybmi.com) flies to Nice from Heathrow, from £74; Jet2 (0871 226 1737, www.jet2.com) flies there from Manchester, from £45. Alamo (0870 400 4562, www.alamo.co.uk) has four days’ inclusive car hire from £145.

Castello di Reschio (00 39 075 844362, www.castellodireschio.com) has four farmhouses for rent. Prices start at £1,415pp per week, based on two sharing in May, including British Airways flights from Gatwick to Pisa; book with A&K Chapters (0845 070 0618, www.akchapters.com). Or try James Villas (0870 055 6688, www.jamesvillas.co.uk).

Mark Ellingham
The publisher

Mark founded the Rough Guides series with his girlfriend, Natania Jansz. They sold up to Penguin, but Ellingham retains a seat on the board

“I NOW have this deal with Rough Guides whereby I get the whole of the school summer holidays off. It’s great, except that the countries I love most — Spain and Greece — are not at their best during July and Aug-ust. So we tend to take bucket-and-spade holidays in Britain.

Every year since my eight-year-old son, Miles, was born, we’ve been going with a bunch of friends to a place on the Pembrokeshire coast called Druidstone Haven. It’s a little hotel on the cliffs, and you walk down to this lovely beach. It’s one of those beaches that you can’t reach by car — which is a blessed thing, because it keeps most people away.

We spent two weeks there last summer, bodyboarding, mackerel-fishing, flying kites, playing games on the beach and taking occasional walks along the coastal path. It was fantastic, and the weather was pretty good. That part of Pembrokeshire seems to have its own microclimate. It can be rainy across most of Britain, but bright sunshine there.