Last week the Canadian side of my family came to visit the UK. They were spending a week in Llanelli, South Wales, so we headed out to join them.

Llanelli is on the south coast of Wales, near Swansea. As I’m currently in North Wales, the journey involved a four hour drive down the entire length of the country.

On the way down we stopped in a little spa town, Llandrindod Wells for a spot of lunch. It’s a cute little spa town about half way down Wales in Powys. We chose the Metropole Hotel for a feed, and to my delight, they were serving Avocado chips! yep, deep fried avo, definitely a first. They were quite tasty too!

Seriously, how are avocado chips not a thing?!

We had booked a 3 bedroom cottage, called The Beach House in Llanelli, via Sykes Cottages for less than half the price of two hotel rooms. We were staying for three nights.

Arriving, we retrieved our keys from a lockbox by the door (as instructed by the owner 48 hours before) and then began to settle into our new pretend home for the next few days. The cottage also came with a shower room, living room and kitchen. It was fully stocked with all the amenities you would usually require on a self catering break. All we had to provide was food.

Image courtesy of Sykes Cottages

The owner kindly left some teabags, fresh milk and Blue Ribands, a welcome respite after such a long journey.

Image courtesy of Sykes Cottages

The whole place was immaculate and kitted out like a beach hut on the inside, which for a nautical lover like me was such a nice little bonus! It also came with the usual expected features of wifi and a parking space. The fire was a nice touch, but despite the dreadful weather it didn’t get cold enough to light.

Image courtesy of Sykes Cottages

We were only a short walk to the town and beach but it was also very very quiet at night – definitely getting my eight hours in. We all know how I love my sleep, so that got my seal of approval.

Personally, I loved that we could fix our own dinners and lunches in the kitchen, especially as we had so much family around.

It was the ideal base to explore the local area (which we did with aplomb – more posts on that later), and I’d love to head back someday to see even more.

Image courtesy of Sykes Cottages

The ONLY negatives were no mirrors in the bedrooms and a bathroom door that didn’t lock!

It was so nice to spend time with my family and extended family outside of the confines and restrictions of a hotel.  The house gave us way more freedom to come and go as we pleased and it made such a lovely change to be able to sit and watch tv in the evenings together.

Even as an Airbnb advocate, the fact that Sykes specialise in cottages is lovely. I sometimes get overwhelmed with AirBnb, but if you know you want a pretty house – Sykes is the way to go! Definitely got my eye on this beaut in Anglesey!

For more information check out Sykes Cottages here.