Foreign tourists have always flocked to the Costa Tropical during the autumn, winter and spring - summer was for Spanish tourists

Firstly it’s too hot to be comfortable and if you are a foreign resident, summer is a good time to go back to your home country, be it Germany, Sweden, Britain or Belgium, for instance, to see the grandkids, get things done and catch up with friends back there.

But this summer is very different as people are desperate to travel after Covid restrictions in their own countries and here, so camper vans are arriving in droves and the campsites are filling up with people chattering away in gibberish (from a Spaniards point of view) alongside the traditional Spanish influx for their summer holiday in a campsite.

Let’s face it, well organised campsites are just the ticket for a young couple and their kids – a community spirit, aircon in your campervan, aircon in the campsite restaurant, sports and games activities for kids, a swimming pool. It’s got everything. Some campsites even provide a tent and everything in it so you just turn up and move in.

Then you have the freedom to explore the area, the nearby towns and spectacular landscapes. Yes, camping is coming back as a holiday venture.

And of course, there is that almost unspoken uneasiness when it comes to interiors and crowds, inclining holiday makers to stay away from the coast and go for rural tourism, including inland campsites.

So, here we are in 2021 and the seasonal visitors are arriving out of synch; like house martins and swallows arriving in October to build nests, as enough foreign tourists are arriving at the gates of summer to make up ten percent of campsite occupation.

Yes, it’s a rare old summer this year but one thing is for sure – people want to have their vacations and nobody nor any virus is going to deny them it.

(News: Granada, Andalucia)