Sara Wheeler asks whether trying to get away from it all is a futile endeavour.

'We go to all that trouble', writes Sara, 'up at 4.30, cancelled planes and trains and bent tent poles - only to find ourselves, boring as ever, glum and pink on a beach or glum and damp in a Welsh cottage!'

But there are still good reasons, Sara argues, why so many of us want a change of scene. And so 'off we go, in large numbers. At every opportunity'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Katie Morrison Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith