Surrey: YHA Tanners Hatch

Your first glimpse of Tanners Hatch, a lovely 17th-century cottage conversion surrounded by rambling roses and mature trees, is a moment of pure delight – this must be one of the prettiest YHAs in the country. Just a couple of miles from the old town of Dorking, the hostel is on National Trust property in the Surrey countryside, and the wooded grounds offer bucolic views across the rolling fields. Paths lead to the Edwardian estate of Polesden Lacey, and the RHS Wisley Garden is nearby. Inside, it's the very definition of cosy – it can be a squeeze at peak times, but the friendly, all-muck-in-together atmosphere is part of the appeal and the low-beamed ceilings and creaky narrow stairs attest to the building's age. There's a little kitchen (it's self-catering only) and a snug living room, and you're welcome to make campfires and stoke up barbecues in the woods. The three dorms, tucked under the eaves, are small, and the toilet/shower block is outside. There's no TV or internet, and mobile reception is patchy. Pure, peaceful bliss.
• YHA Tanners Hatch, off Ranmore Road, Dorking, 0845 371 9542, yha.org.uk/hostel/tanners-hatch. Dorms £16.40–£24.40. Camping £5.50–9.50 per person

Norfolk: Old Red Lion

Painted deep red, the Old Red Lion sits just outside a gatehouse in the medieval walled village of Castle Acre in the north-west of the county. Set around a little green, with teashops, pubs and a couple of shops, it is a few strides from the long-distance Peddars Way footpath, making it a perfect stop-off for walkers and cyclists. Not quite a hostel, not quite a B&B, but with the best of both worlds and more besides, The Old Red Lion was once a pub, but you'd never know it. Owner Alison Loughlin has lived here (in a separate area) for nearly 40 years, teaching yoga and welcoming travellers from around the world, and her warmhearted, alternative style infuses the whole place. You enter through a suntrap courtyard, paved with pebble mosaics, to the main building, where a warren of rooms, from twins to a 10-bed dorm, offer simple, cosy lodgings – all pine furnishings and floorboards, colourful duvets and kilim rugs. The wholefood breakfast – muesli, fruit, bread, spreads and yoghurt – is a self-service affair, and there's a small kitchen for guests' use. Eat in the courtyard, or the large, airy Garden Room.
• Bailey Street, Castle Acre, 01760 755557, oldredlion.org.uk. Dorms from £22.50, twins from £50, doubles from £60. Breakfast included. Dogs are £5 extra

Devon: Café Alf Resco

This great little cafe, B&B and apartment in beautiful Dartmouth is a real bargain. Downstairs, the buzzy cafe itself (open 7am–2pm) looks like it should be on the Left Bank; it serves Devon yoghurt, homemade granola, local sausages and excellent coffee from a Gaggia machine, as well as hosting the odd jazz night. The guest rooms are accessed from the other side of the tall Victorian house – avoid the place if stairs are not your thing. There's an elegant double with an LCD TV, and next door is a bunk room for two, often used to sleep kids while their parents enjoy the luxury of the double room. But the star of the show is upstairs, a beautiful self-catering apartment with wooden walls and ceiling, a neat galley kitchen, a miniature balcony with views of the River Dart and a ship's cabin bathroom. With its cushions, wood-burning stove and attractive antique furniture, the style is uncontrived bohemian chic. Owners Peter and Kate Ryder will find babysitters and can advise on boat trips and outings in the area.
• Lower Street, Dartmouth, 01803 835880, cafealfresco.co.uk. Apartment for two £75 (£95 with breakfast). twin bunk room £65, double £85, breakfast included. No credit cards. All rooms are en suite

Cornwall: YHA Castle Horneck

Set in woodland around 25 minutes' walk from town, the YHA is Penzance's best budget option and buzzes with families, hikers and surfers in high season. It's in a recently restored Georgian manor, and offers rather swisher accommodation than many YHAs. Some of the grand original features, such as ornate fireplaces, have been retained, but it's also thoroughly modern, with a stylish restaurant and bar, a well-furnished lounge, table football and an excellent self-catering kitchen. There are doubles, twins and family rooms as well as dorms, and all rooms are simply furnished and spotlessly clean. Penzance lacks the charm of St Ives on the north coast, but it's an active working port, and a terrific base for boat trips along the coast and out to the Isles of Scilly. You're well positioned to visit the dramatic rock-cut Minack Theatre as well as stunning St Michael's Mount, or just to spot seals, dolphins and even sharks in the nearby waters. There are sand beaches nearby, as well as the clifftop coast path – a great way of exploring the area. And in West Penwith – the furthest extreme of the Cornish coast – you can visit a superb array of Neolithic remains: barrows, quoits and stone circles.
• Alverton, Penzance, 0845 371 9653, yha.org.uk/hostel/penzance. Dorms from £23.40

Derbyshire: YHA Hartington Hall

A drive across the bare, windswept and often misty expanses of the Derbyshire dales can leave you feeling very far from civilisation. All the more surprising, then, to arrive at the attractive limestone and gritstone village of Hartington, set on a gentle hillside, and find elegant 17th-century Hartington Hall. This is a flagship property for the YHA, having been upgraded to something approaching a country-house hotel. Downstairs there's a bar, a lively restaurant and a comfortable lounge. Upstairs are the dorms and rooms, all cosily fitted out with en suite shower rooms and individual reading lights. This is an old building, but the restoration has left many architectural features intact, including a sloping wooden door leading to a double room where Bonnie Prince Charlie is reputed to have slept. Most visitors here are bent on exploring the outdoors, as you're right in the heart of the Peak District national park. At the end of the day, a hearty hostel meal and a pint at the bar are the perfect pick-me-up, and the village is lovely for an evening wander, with its duck pond, Georgian houses, rustic cottages and 13th-century church.
• Hall Bank, Hartington, 0845 371 9740, yha.org.uk/hostel/hartington. Dorms from £22.40. Discounts for walk-ins

Wales: The Old School Hostel

A mid-life crisis isn't necessarily a bad thing. When Chris Clements and Sue Whitmore got the jitters about the direction of their lives, they embarked on a tour around Britain as hostel managers. And because they wound up on this stretch of the north Pembrokeshire coastline, they rescued The Old School Hostel when it was cut adrift by the YHA in 2006. A hostel of the old-school this is not, however. Out went the regimented style of YHAs past. In came a new kitchen and personal possessions to furnish the living room – no hostel in Wales can have such an interesting library for guests to browse. Even the most basic rooms – all but one now en suite – are packed with personality: funky wallpapers or artwork by a local painter and a bookshelf of reading material by the bed. Solar-power and discounts for guests who arrive by eco-friendly methods tick the green credentials box. The result is Chris and Sue writ large: laidback, environmentally aware, but also eclectic and, in the nicest possible way, a little eccentric.
• Ffordd-yr-Afon, Trefin, Pembrokeshire, 01348 831800, theoldschoolhostel.co.uk. Doubles from £34, family rooms £17 per person, dorms £15

Yorkshire: Hebden Bridge Hostel 

If you sat down to design a hostel for arty, ecofriendly, hippy-chic Hebden Bridge – a vibrant old mill town nestling in the Calder Valley – you'd almost certainly end up with something like Dave and Em Weirdigan's offbeat joint, carved out of the concert rooms of a 1930s Baptist chapel. Their outgoing personality is stamped all over the hostel (they also run a pop-up organic cafe at summer festivals) and although there are only a few rules, these help define the place's character, from quiet-after-10pm to veggie-food-only in the kitchen. It's a big, bright building with plenty of natural light, and wood and laminate floors throughout. All the bedrooms bar one are upstairs and are reminiscent of ship's cabins, with two single beds and then two more in an upper gallery, reached by a steep wooden ladder. One room squeezes in six beds and shaves a few quid off the regular price, but you'll need to bring a sleeping bag if you wind up here; all the other rooms come with bedding. There's also a double and a twin, while each room has a cupboard-style shower and loo – nothing fancy but perfectly serviceable. Once you've bonded with Kipper the hostel cat, or sat out on the patio for a while, then it's out on the trail of poetic star-crossed lovers, with Ted Hughes' birthplace only a couple of miles away in Mytholmroyd and the grave of his wife, Sylvia Plath, found in the next village of Heptonstall.
• The Birchcliffe Centre, Hebden Bridge, 01422 843183, hebdenbridgehostel.co.uk. Doubles £55, four-bed bunk rooms £18.50 per person or £70 for private use, six-bed bunk room (no bedding) £12.50; all rooms en suite. Light breakfast included. Closed to individuals (whole-hostel bookings only) from second week in November to the start of Easter holidays

Cumbria: Grasmere Independent Hostel

The Lake District's finest independent hostel is sited in a converted barn with views a 10-minute walk outside the invariably crowded tourist village of Grasmere – point one in its favour, if you're a fresh air and mountains kind of person. Point two, frankly, is everything else about the place, which knocks most other Lakeland hostels into a cocked hat. There's only so much you can do with small pine-bedded bunk rooms, but they do it well, with bedside lights, en suite shower rooms, carpets underfoot, and cheery matching quilt covers and curtains throughout. Four rooms sleep four to six people each, but the top attic room, Helvellyn, sleeps just three and has its own private bathroom – great for couples if available. There are mountain views out of each bedroom (to be fair, they're hard to avoid around here), and more from the cosy lounge which frames the local peaks through a super, circular, slate-trimmed window. On ground level is a professionally equipped self-catering kitchen, and not just more showers and toilets for muddy hikers and bikers but also a coin-op sauna. Oh yes, point three – after a soak and a steam, the local pub is only four hundred yards down the road, very handy for a celebratory pint after you've completed the Grasmere and Rydal Water circuit or one of the tougher local mountain hikes.
• Broadrayne Farm, Grasmere, 015394 35055, lakedistrictgroupaccommodation.co.uk. Dorms from £19.50. Hostel also available for sole use, £475 per night

Northumberland: Barrowburn

The 16-mile journey into the Upper Coquet valley in the Northumberland national park has "remote" and "end-of-the-line" stamped all over it. The narrow road twists and turns between the heather-clad moors of the Cheviot Hills, emerging in a wide clearing by the farm at Barrowburn.That there was once a school here is scarcely credible, yet Barrowburn's small stone Camping Barn was precisely that; built in 1879 and last used as a school in 1970, it lies a couple of hundred yards away from the farmhouse and is now set up as a "stone tent", with a wooden-floored balcony for bring-your-own camping mats and sleeping bags, a kitchen with four-ring gas burner and hot water, a cold water washroom and a multi-fuel (wood and coal) stove for heat. If this sounds too hardcore, the alternative choice stands immediately adjacent in the shape of the heavily weathered wooden lodge that was once the teacher's house but is now known as the Deer Hut. While still basically furnished, this is a whole lot more comfortable, with two made-up twin bedrooms, a hot water bathroom, small kitchen with full-sized oven, plus convector heater and an open coal fire. Failing this, there are two B&B rooms in the farmhouse itself, offering a simple bed for the night for weary walkers, a thumping big breakfast and a home-cooked dinner. The views everywhere – naturally – are magnificent. The farmhouse tearoom has a big local reputation for its home-made cakes, scones and biscuits, and can rustle up a bowl of soup and a bacon sandwich.
• Harbottle, 01669 621176, barrowburn.com. Twins with shared bathroom £80; includes breakfast and dinner. Deer Hut (sleeps six) £60 per night, including fuel. Camping Barn (sleeps 17) £80 per night, including fuel, or £10/person for fewer than eight

Scotland: Woodland Chalet Holidays

Holidaying with their family in Scotland and Europe, Ursula and Adrian George found that self-catering accommodation was often lacking in some way. They decided they could do it better, and the result is Woodend Chalet Holidays, a small, family oriented alternative to big outdoor holiday resorts such as Center Parcs. The chalets are surrounded by woodland and, instead of a resort-style giant swimming pool, the main attraction is the attractive grassy area at the centre of the site, which gives kids a safe and secluded place to play. There's also a games room that's stuffed with toys and a library full of books for little ones. Bikes are free to rent, as are cots, highchairs and booster seats. While the kids get a kick out of exploring the forest (there's a good chance of spotting roe deer and red squirrels) parents can unwind in the well-equipped chalets, which feel like real houses with large bathtubs, leather sofas and proper double beds. The decor is more pleasingly functional than flash – but there are chalets to suit most families, from one-bed affairs to "luxury" units that sleep six, complete with wood-burning stoves and their own covered deck areas. Banchory, three miles away, has some decent, family friendly inns.
• Banchory, Royal Deeside, Aberdeenshire, 01339 882562, woodendchalets.co.uk. Prices based on three-night stays: one and two-bed chalets £240 for three nights, larger two-bedroom chalets £285, three-bedroom chalets £465. Three-night minimum stay usually applies

• Buy The Best Places to Stay in Britain on a Budget (Rough Guides, £9.99, published April) from the Guardian Bookshop for £7.99

• This article was amended on 27 March to correct the prices at Café Alf Resco