Working from a park home: what to check before you book
Holiday parks get asked for this more every winter, and most of them answer with a photograph of a laptop on a deck. Here is the useful version.
· 5 minute read
The short answer
Yes, and the wifi is the easy part. Every home we let is on full fibre, with private parking at the door and heating that runs all year. What none of them has is a desk. You work at the dining table, in a room looking out at a field, with nobody in the next room. For a week of calls and writing that beats a hotel desk. For two screens and a chair you can sit in for eight hours, it is not an office.
How good is the wifi, honestly?
Every home is on full fibre rather than on a mobile signal shared round the park. That is the part worth checking anywhere else you look. A rural park on a 4G router is fine for email and poor for a video call at five o’clock.
We do not publish a speed, because the speed at the socket is not the speed in the far bedroom. Ring the park and ask what they get. The person who answers uses the same line in the office.
Take your phone as a backup anyway. That is true in any building in the countryside, and it is true in most offices.
Where do you actually sit and work?
At the dining table. Every home has one, and in most of them it sits by the window at the open-plan end. There is a socket within reach and there is daylight, which is more than a hotel room usually manages.
Some homes have French doors on to the decking. In April that is the best desk on this website. In January it is a window to look out of.
If you need a proper chair for a long week, bring one. A lumbar cushion is the small thing that changes a fortnight here.
Does a longer stay cost less?
Yes, and the discount is banded rather than negotiated. Seven nights or more takes eight per cent off the accommodation. Ten nights takes twelve. Fourteen nights takes fifteen.
The calendar applies it when you pick the dates. You see the figure before you reach a payment page, and no code is involved.
That is the reason a working fortnight here is cheaper than two weeks of hotel nights, before you have cooked a single meal.
Is it quiet enough to take calls?
You have the whole home, so there is no shared wall and no corridor. That is the real difference from a hotel. Nobody walks past your door.
Midweek out of school holidays, the parks are quiet. Grounds work happens in the morning. The nearest noise is usually a mower.
In August a park with families on it sounds like a park with families on it. If the work matters more than the weather, book the term time.
What does it replace?
A room with a kettle, or a serviced flat. A home here has a kitchen, a washing machine and somewhere to put a bike. The nightly rate covers the clean, the linen, the heating, the wifi and the parking.
There are no fees added at the park and no charge per person. Two people working from the same home pay what one pays.
It also means you cook. For a week that is a saving. For a month it is a change of life, which some people want and some do not.
Questions people ask
Is there a desk in any of the homes?
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No. Every home has a dining table and most have it by a window, and that is what people work at. We would rather say so than photograph a laptop on a bed.
Is the wifi included in the price?
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Yes. Full-fibre wifi, heating, hot water, parking, linen and the clean are all in the nightly rate. Nothing on that list is metered or charged at the park.
Do the parks have a shared office or meeting room?
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No. None of the parks has a co-working room or a bookable meeting space. The clubhouse at the larger parks is a bar and a food counter rather than a place to take a call.
Can I stay for a month?
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The calendar prices any run of dates you choose, and the longest discount band starts at fourteen nights. For anything beyond a month, ring the park, because that is a different kind of agreement.
Can I get something to put on an expenses claim?
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The confirmation email lists the nightly rate, the clean and every other line in full, with the booking reference. That is what most expense systems ask for.