It would be possible to argue that the happiest little 20 minutes of my life, ever, in all my travels, ever, were spent leaning horizontally into the rain in the terrible cold of Lyme Regis in January 2002, with shingle rashing the inside of my damp socks, a fat wet dog nipping at my ankles, every shop closed or broken, and the grey freezing foggy busk of twilight mooning in. Possible, but also deluded. And a Big Fat Lie. Happiest times have, of course, been: Denis Island in the Seychelles, Wineglass Bay in Tasmania, Jackie Thing in the huge, huge revolving bed in Bali.

But the truly bizarre thing is that the likes of Lyme Regis, even walking wet and horizontal and wheezing, would actually come pretty high up, probably even just a bit above Jackie. There is something quite glorious about the idea of out-of-season holidays, and the glorious thing is this: honesty.

You can't lie. You can't go somewhere to take your mind off things (How you don't love your wife, except when you do. How annoying your children, until they have brains, are). You don't have to pretend to like museums, or big grey dull galleries, because they're shut.

You have, finally, for one chance in your year, to simply enjoy your own personality. If coupled up, enjoy the other's too. There are, holidaying out of season, something approaching 400 advantages to holidaying in season, and they're not all about money. They're about this:

Well, yes, OK, money. Goodness but it's so much cheaper.

No boilerhead families who haven't the Wit.

Leaning horizontally into the rain in Lyme Regis, or Cromer, or Blakeney, with someone you love or might love, wondering how the shops whose faces are covered with yellow cellophane manage to keep alive. Then going for a long wet walk along shingle, and having a conversation, and coming back and checking into a small pub with a room upstairs, because it's the only place open, and being told the room will be ready in an hour but until then would you like to sit in the bar, by the fire, and have a whisky? Um ... yes. Make it three hours. And an old quilt, if you could: none of your modern duvet nonsense. And, if we're really going back to the old days, then a swan's-quiff condom would be just the ... yes, fine, you can go too far.

No people. Clogging it all up.

No waiting. Behind people. Who are clogging it all up.

Being able to enjoy, on your own, the idea of a cold sunset, or listening to an estuary, without there being the faintest chance of a blaring car, or the oddly inescapable sound produced by fat warm fat red summery man-fat, rubbing against itself and its nylon.

Being able, also, to go into the Picaddily Amusement Arcadia™ without worrying about your wallet, because there's no one else there, and lose a pocketful of 20ps on the corrupt coin fountain.

The locals will approach you with marginally less threatening mannerisms, because they find themselves marginally less threatened. They will simply lust, from afar (throwing darts, mournfully; playing Abba again, mournfully, on the juke box) after your girlfriend, rather than trying to actively and cheatingly touch her under the guise of the pub being very busy with fat warm fat red incomers' summery man-fat.

Doing - and this is, in honesty, the Big One - your own thing. You have chosen to go somewhere, and it has been your own choice. You have not said to yourself: 'It is a Bank Holiday, in high summer, so what I must choose to do, as an individual, or even someone who works in marketing, is to strap my family into a hot little metal tub and go where everyone else in the country is going, in similar tubs, at the same time, now. Hotly.'

You have instead chosen to walk the shingle, tear the socks, get your fingers blue and white then warm them up, around a tumbler of Caol Ila, served by someone called Ythan or Molloy, who will tell you a terrible but gripping story about his aunt, who had the goat-dentist and the turnip problem. You have chosen, very probably, to save money, but in a clever way, rather than a supermarket loyalty card way. You are, I suspect, becoming something of a hero.

You have chosen to have a conversation with your wife. You have, even more bravely, chosen to have a conversation with your children. You have chosen to allow yourself, and your children, most of whom you are now talking to, apart from the one still rather boringly traumatised by the goat-dentist story, to buy things, without queuing. It's like living in what some newspapers would like to have us believe life was like in the Fifties, without of course actually having to do so.

Gratifyingly few other people. Cold wet walks. Tills made out of metal, which work. Chilblains. Conversation. Individuality, and inventiveness, and that glorious moment when you realise that the person you are with will make the best of a bad situation, or (equally helpfully, in fact) that they won't: and, taken all together, for many of us, very heaven.

How to avoid the end of season blues

Off-season travellers can take advantage of cheaper hotels and air fares, fewer crowds and friendlier locals, but there are some downsides too. Avoid the pitfalls with our top tips:

· It's called the off season for a reason: some museums and attractions close (most National Trust properties, for example) or remove exhibits for restoration work. If you have set your heart on seeing something, do check that it will be open.

· Many hotels, particularly in tourist resorts, carry out renovation work in the quieter months before the summer onslaught. Before snapping up that bargain deal, you might want to phone ahead and check the hotel will not be a building site.

· In winter, some hotels drop their rates by up to 40 per cent so it's worth asking for a discount. This is less likely to apply in cities which have a strong year-round business travel market.

· Check the weather. Though temperatures drop throughout Europe, some months are wetter than others. For example, Paris is more likely to be dry in February than in January or March.

· Remember it gets dark sooner, so you may want to set off early in the morning to make the most of the daylight. Many attractions are open only during daylight hours, so plan your sightseeing accordingly.

· Outside cities, local transport will often switch to a winter timetable, which may mean less frequent or even non-existent bus and ferry connections.

· Seaside resorts and places with a tourist 'season' can feel forlorn. Small towns and inland resorts are often a better bet.