Website of the Week: www.mumsnet.com/travel

By FRED MAWER
Updated:

Rating: 4 Star Rating

Mumsnet describes its purpose in life as being 'to make parents' lives easier by pooling knowledge, experience and support'.

It's one of the UK's big, household name websites, with around 1.3 million visitors a month.

So, with the Easter school holidays imminent, I though it would be worth seeing what's on the website, in terms of info and advice on days out, travel and holidays - and the answer is an enormous amount. 

Three mums drinking coffee

Share and share alike: Other mums can be a mine of information when it comes to travel advice

Strengths

The often highly critical Mumsnet reviews, posted by users and in their thousands, can be fantastically helpful. They cover everything from theme parks and museums, to brands of tents and hotels and cottages. The 'Mumsnet Best' places - those given highest ratings - are helpfully listed first under the various themes.

Another way of tapping in to all the excellent advice on the site is through Mumsnet Talk - the extremely active forum.

The days out section has threads addressing thorny issues such as 'Will Alton Towers be bonkers busy over the Easter weekend?' and 'Science Museum or London Transport Museum for three year old?' 

You'll also find copious threads on subjects such as camping and flying with Ryanair ('Has anyone flown with Ryanair? Is it as awful as it's made out to be?' asks one mum).

Mumsnet also includes some good, professionally-written advisory articles on subjects such as camping and travelling with children (you should read the section on going by plane before you fly for the first time with a child), and the downloadable packing checklists are useful too.

Weaknesses

There's much more stuff on holidays and travel than first meets the eye - and you have to dig quite deep to pull out what you're looking for.

The destination guides are skimpy - they appear primarily to be platforms for related reviews - and for some reason there are only 11 of them.

Ratings

Inspiring 4/5
Useful 5/5
Easy to use 4/5
 

Most watched News videos