If you’re only used to booking chain hotels, then there’s every chance that you haven’t even thought about the hoops that you have to jump through to book a countryside B&B. While many do have their own websites and will appear on comparison websites such as Booking.com, there is still a surprising amount of them which do not. This is because they are good enough to attract enough business on their own, without having to pay the high fees that some hotel and accommodation booking websites charge. You shouldn’t take a place’s absence from these sites as a bad sign. In fact, in many cases, it’s a sign that you have stumbled on something great.

However, this poses an obvious question; if the best countryside B&Bs don’t appear on comparison websites, then how are you meant to even find out about them in the first place? The answer lies in the high number of books and websites which exist to review and rank some of the boutique B&B options that are available out there. If you are going to be spending a significant amount of time in the UK, then it’s well worth going online and spending a little money to get hold of one of these guides. Most of them are available in ebook format, so there’s no need to wait for delivery, and they’re generally worth their weight in gold.

Once you’ve chosen somewhere which you like, the next step is generally to make a phone call or send an email to secure your reservation. This may seem terribly old fashioned compared to the modern option of booking via apps and comparison websites, but it’s generally the only way that things work in these types of places. The upside of this is that you usually won’t have to pay for your stay until you actually arrive, although in some cases you will have to give credit card details to guarantee the room in case you don’t show up. In most cases, however, the cancellation policies are relatively generous, as long as you let the B&B know in advance that you won’t be coming anymore.

We promise it’s worth jumping through a few hoops to find a great place to stay in the UK.