Brittany is an ideal family destination for camping in France. The region has the longest coastline in France, so there are white-sand beaches, serene harbours and craggy coves to discover.

Plus, camping doesn’t have to be under canvas. You can enjoy all the luxuries of a mobile home holiday by staying at one of our best-known siblu holiday villages. Four-star Domaine de Kerlann has free children’s clubs, indoor and outdoor pools, a splash zone and sports pitches, and is located close to the pretty town of Pont Aven.

And why is August such a great time to visit? Well, there is the Lorient Celtic Festival (5 to 14 August 2011), a 10-day celebration of Celtic culture includes more than 250 events for 700,000 visitors taking place on stage, in the street and under tents. There’s a diverse collection of musicians from across the world and headline events including Pipe Band and Bagpipe Championships, instrument master-classes and dance competitions. About 60% of the events are free to watch, so there is amazing amount to see and experience at no cost.

For those seeking some solitude from the Celtic clamour, Brittany beaches are superb. The fishing port of Trevignon has a huge beach with lots of smaller bays. Port-Manech is a pretty harbour town with a large sandy beach that is rarely crowded and has plenty of rocks pools for inquisitive kids. La Grande Plage in Carnac is south-facing, sandy and the ocean is calm and suitable for youngsters.

Carnac is also the site of France’s version of Stonehenge. For 6,000 years more than 3000 standing stones, some more than 20m high, have stood in perfect alignment for more than two miles. Local myth has it that the stones are a legion of Roman soldier turned into rocks by the magician Merlin.

I hope that has whetted your appetite. Find out more about Brittany in the siblu region guide, or price up your holiday.

If you have visited Brittany or been to the Lorient Celtic Festival, please tell us about it in the comments below.

Le Bois Masson
The health and wellbeing centre at Le Bois Masson siblu village, near to the seaside resort of St Jean-de-Monts on the Vendée coast, has a steam room and spa offering massages, body and skin treatments, from only 18€ for a 30-minute session. The village itself has indoor and outdoor pools, free children’s clubs and is close to cycle routes that stretch along the wonderful coast.

Les Sables du Midi
Les Sables du Midi siblu village can offer body scrubs, circulatory stretching and Californian massages to anyone who needs more than a beach break under the south of France sun to unwind. Sauna sessions start from only 5€ and treatments from just 20€. The village also has two small pools and is less than one kilometre from the sandy beaches if Valras Plage.

If the day of rest has already been affected, do these findings have any relevance on how we spend our holiday time?

I can remember an early MD who always installed a fax machine by the pool in his holiday villa (this was in the days before email), so he could issue orders and receive updates from his team back at the office.

Many people I speak to dread the first day back at work after a holiday because of the anxiety they feel about catching up and responding to emails. When I’m away, I often find myself flicking into the email section of my mobile phone to try and keep on top of the latest developments back at the office.

As my wife tells me, that’s not really the point of a holiday.

The Indesit research suggests that responding to emails over the weekend is one of the drivers behind people’s back-to-work anxiety, so the number of messages that drop into inboxes over the course of a holiday is bound to ramp up the worry levels when we’re away.

Perhaps we should follow the lead of one friend who deletes every email she receives while she is on holiday, under the assumption that people will contact her again if their message really is important.

I wonder if a technology-lite holiday, such as camping in France, is more restful because it gives us a complete change of environment?

Back to nature, playing catch with the kids, eating outdoors, no TV – this really is a complete change to our home life.

If we are losing time thinking about work when we are away, should we be booking 8 or 15 night holidays to give us one more ‘buffer’ day between our holiday and the office return, when we can prepare ourselves for that first day back? After all, if the weekend is only 1.5 days long, we need all the rest we can get.

Do you think you’re using getting the most from your holiday or do you spend time worrying about work? What tips do you have for relaxing, and is a buffer day a good idea? Tell us what you think.

First off, tents sales soared this year and from what I see on the various forums I’m a member of, there are plenty of people who spent a damp few days under canvas and are saying “never again”. Not only is that money down the drain but it’s a shame that one bad experience might stop people camping under canvas – it really is a fun experience with kids when the weather’s right.

In our UK call centre we saw a rise in calls in August, for people wanting to take a holiday in the same month. Unfortunately for many, they’d left it so late that finding accommodation really was difficult so they could not get the siblu parc or the duration they wanted.

And for those who could find accommodation, there were difficulties in picking out a travel option to fit their needs. Ferry prices stay the same no matter how close to travel you book, however the popular routes, travelling at the most convenient times, book first.

The low-cost airlines lose all pretence of low prices on popular routes in the summer season for people booking late, so for a family the cost can be prohibitive.

So, what’s the answer? Well, holiday companies want your business and there are great early booking deals to look out for. We’ve brought back our low-cost deposit of £25 if you book before 30 September, which means you can book for even the busiest periods for just £25 and investigate the cheapest travel options now.

If next August in the UK turns into another damp squib, will it really be worth the cost of not booking early?