April showers are on us which means summer isn't far away. What are you doing this summer? Are you going to escape to recharge your batteries? Here are some more travel trends for you.

Trend #1: Single Travel

Many people are striking out solo on their travels but travelling on your own can be expensive if you aren't careful, most cruise lines will charge anywhere from 50% to 100% more for a single occupying a double occupancy cabin by themselves and many tour operators do the same for rooms in hotels.

TIP 1: Oceania Cruises only charges a 25% single supplement on selected 2010 European Collection voyages.

TIP 2: For those willing to share...adventure and coach tour companies will sometimes set up a same-sex share without supplement. On Insight Vacations (who offer premium coach tours to Europe and beyond) for example: "For people travelling alone on an Insight coach tour, we'll match you with someone of the same gender, so you don't have to pay the single room supplement. If we fail to match you, we'll provide a single room at no extra cost."

TIP 3: Some package sun destinations offer good value for singles at all-inclusive resorts. While there are single supplements, they are not close to the premium that one might expect - as little as $200-$300 over the course of a week at a 4 star all inclusive resort. With all-inclusive packages, the problem when shopping for these online as a single is that almost all websites either default to double occupancy, or worse, offer no choice to get to single occupancy shopping until navigating several screens into an actual booking. As travel counsellors, we can cut through the "noise" for you.

Trend #2: The UK

Visiting the UK was an expensive proposition for Canadian travellers, with sky-high hotel prices and once you got there everything was pricey. The recent fall in the value of the pound has opened up some great deals for value-minded travellers. Average hotel prices in pounds are down about 5% but combined with the fall in the pound this can amount to savings of 30% in dollars. This means a trip that cost $3,000 last year is only $2,000 this year.