CAMP OUT

Sleeping under canvas is the Marmite of summer holidays: you either love it or hate it. One thing is near certain, though: your children will have a whale of a time. The cheapest option is to buy a tent, take the ferry and pitch up at a site. Touring Cheque (0870 901 9496, www.touringcheque.co.uk) sells flat-rate vouchers for £9.75 per night for two people (with child supplements of £3.20 per night for under-10s and £3.90 for over-10s), which can save up to 60% on advertised rates. It recommends Camping Rolli, on Italy’s Lake Garda, which is 300 yards from a beach with safe swimming, windsurfing, canoeing and boat trips. A week in August with two teenagers would cost just £281, including ferry crossings.

If you prefer to arrive on site to find everything prepared for you, try a company such as Canvas Holidays (01383 629000, www.canvasholidays.co.uk), which has large three-bedroom tents equipped with separate kitchens, sprung beds and electric lighting. A week at the Domaine de Drancourt, a rural camp site in the grounds of a chateau in Picardy, costs £854, including ferry crossings (two weeks cost £1,155). The site, which is surrounded by woods and fields, has two pools, tennis courts, cycle hire, football and pony-riding.

A posher alternative is to go with Acorn Family Adventure (0800 074 5149, www.acornadventure.co.uk), which has its own self-contained camps of about 20 tents; its prices include all meals and activities such as windsurfing, sailing, climbing, abseiling, caving and archery. The minimum age is 8, but most activities are tailored towards young teens. Eight nights at Labeaume, a private camp in the Ardèche with a pool, a playing field, a boules court, table tennis and a bar, costs £1,676, including ferry crossings. Not cheap, but that does include all the activities and a two-day white-water descent of the Ardèche by canoe, sleeping under the stars.

Children as young as 8 can enjoy a cycling, canoeing and camping adventure in the Dordogne with Explore (0870 333 4001, www.explore.co.uk). It costs £1,630, which includes train travel from London, breakfast, all activities and the services of a tour guide. You stay at a series of attractive camp sites alongside the river, erecting your own two-person tents.

BE MOBILE

If you can’t stand the thought of sleeping under canvas, go for one of the new generation of mobile homes, which are a million times better than those rickety caravans we all remember from the 1970s. Thomson’s Al Fresco brochure (0870 166 0366, www.thomsonalfresco.co.uk), for instance, features newly built “holiday homes” with separate bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen, and patio doors leading onto a decked veranda. The company recommends the Château des Ormes holiday park, near Mont St Michel, in northern Brittany, which has a free children’s club, a pool with waterslides, riding stables, an 18-hole golf course, a lake with canoeing, an assault course, football and volleyball. A week costs £1,333 for up to six people; a fortnight is £1,928.

Some French holiday parks have facilities that rival those at beach clubs run by the likes of Mark Warner and Club Med. La Réserve, near Biarritz, is located on the shore of a lake and has RYA-approved sailing, powerboating and windsurfing courses, as well as canoeing, dinghy-sailing, kayaking, water-skiing, football coaching and tennis tournaments. It also has two outdoor pools with slides and flumes, a new indoor pool and clubs for children aged 1-14. A week in a mobile home for up to six people costs £988 (£1,343 for 10 days), including ferry crossings, with Haven Europe (0870 242 7777, www.siblu.com). Courses are extra.

FLAT DEALS

Apartment rentals can be great value — the trick is in searching through websites and brochures to dig out the best ones. Interhome (020 8891 1294, www.interhome.co.uk), which has been in the business for 40 years, recommends heading south to the Languedoc-Roussillon coast, which is much cheaper and less congested than the Côte d’Azur.

It suggests Les Marines de l’Espiguette, in Port Camargue, where a spacious apartment for up to six people, with shared pool, costs £610 for a week, including ferry crossings. There is a sandy beach a mile and a half away.

If you dream of getting away from it all, head to the Maeva holiday village, a converted fort on the gorgeous Ile d’Aix, off the French Atlantic coast. The island is off limits to cars, so when you arrive, unload the bikes and pedal along trails and country lanes, or soak up the sun on a pristine two-mile sandy beach. The holiday village has an outdoor heated pool and — for an extra charge — a kids’ beach club, a sailing school and a tennis club. A family sharing a self-catering apartment in the fort will pay £808, including ferry crossings, with Leisure Direction (0870 442 8930, www.leisuredirection.co.uk).