Nearly three-quarters of us fret about missing out on office gossip while away on holiday, research has suggested.

The poll from Sunshine found that more than 80% of us worry about missing out on important work developments, suggesting that even when on a beach thousands of miles away, work is never far from our minds.

Fretting over such matters can get in the way of a good time, but people arranging airport transfers can at least be sure their trip to and from the airport is hassle-free.

The poll of 1,652 full-time workers also found that more than 30% work while away, and that a quarter phone or email the office to check if everything is okay.

Nearly a fifth had gone as far as Facebooking workmates, while 3% requested that staff nights out were delayed until they returned from their holiday.

Sunshine co-founder Chris Brown said: “Fear of missing out is indeed a relatively common phenomenon and it’s not difficult to see why it’s quite common among holidaymakers.

“When you are thousands of miles away, it’s easy to start getting anxious about what you could be missing, whether that’s actual work you may need to catch up on when you get back, or just who said what behind whose back in the office.”

A survey has revealed that Britons tend to err on the side of caution and pack more than they need when going on holiday.

British Airways discovered that a whopping nine in 10 holidaymakers do not use up to 30% of items they take on holiday, while 40% take three or more pairs of shoes.

A fifth of people take 10 or more pairs of underwear, while an eighth take three or more towels away with them on a one-week holiday.

Scottish people and those from the east of England are more likely to pack too many things and therefore have to dig deep in their pockets to pay excess baggage surcharges.

If you do have a lot of baggage, airport transfers can be a quick and stress-free way to get between airports.

The survey went on to reveal that many Britons pack foods in their suitcases to take with them on holiday. Popular items include tomatoes, sardines, peanut butter, Super Noodles, Marmite and potato peelers.

Fancy dress items, such as angel wings and nun’s outfits, were also popular items to take abroad.

Abigail Comber, BA’s head of brands and marketing, said: “We don’t really want to have to choose between books, toiletries or tea-bags, or to dress kids in half their holiday clothes just to avoid excess baggage fees. Something as basic as checking what your baggage limit is on your chosen airline will help.”

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People jetting off for a Christmas holiday are getting in touch with car hire firms in their destinations much earlier than usual, figures show.

There has been a 38% jump in early reservations made with eRentals – a website that helps people find hire cars in more than 12,000 destinations – for the Christmas period.

Car hire is seen as a good solution for people flying, as airport transfers by bus are handy when they set off, and avoid troublesome parking and the related cost. They also provide mobility on holiday that allows travellers to see the sights in relative ease.

The website said the spike in early booking goes against the trend for this time of year, with people usually waiting until Christmas is closer before booking a hire car. Geneva, Lisbon and Faro have proven to be the top destinations this year, eRentals said.

Spokeswoman Briony Fairbairn said: “Each festive season there is usually a late rush of car hire bookings, even in the few days before Christmas. This year though there seem to be many more people booking ahead to be sure they get themselves the car they need for their trip.”

She said more people are looking for things like snow chains or 4×4 cars for festive holiday,s and booking ahead is the best way to make sure they bag what they want at a reasonable price. She said people who book early would have “a more enjoyable trip with a smoother car hire experience”.

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A survey of UK holidaymakers has revealed that we most like to kick back on the beach with our families when on our ideal overseas break.

The beach holiday was voted the most popular type of break in a poll of thousands of sunseekers carried out by the Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) for its annual Consumer Trends study.

City breaks came second in the destination stakes, along with going away with a significant other. Cultural trips and breaks with friends were voted the third most popular choices. Whichever option or combination of options holidaymakers go for, arranging an airport transfer before travelling can take a lot of the stress out of the trip.

Beach holidays scooped 37% of the popular vote, with those aged between 35 and 44 being especially keen to feel sand on their feet. Men were less keen than women to jet off with their partner. Some 45% of women are keener to holiday with their partner than men at 38%.

Mark Tanzer ABTA Chief Executive said: “Our customers’ ideal holiday choices are incredibly wide and varied and our survey gives a fascinating insight into what they like to do and who they like to share their ideal holiday experiences with.”

Holidaymakers should prepare themselves for additional costs when they go on an all-inclusive break, research has suggested. 

Up to 80% of package holiday tourists admitted they ended up paying up extra cash for items they thought were included in the price of their booking.

Many travellers said they expected free soft drinks, internet access and mini bars as part of their all-inclusive packages.

In fact, some travellers had to pay extra for these items, making it even more important for them to save money on other costs such as airport transfers. 

According to the Post Office Travel Money survey, 94% of respondents thought all their hotel meals would be included as part of their holiday deal.

But 65% of the 54 establishments questioned as part of the survey said they restricted the use of a-la-carte restaurants or charged holidaymakers extra to use them. 

A fifth of holidaymakers said they had paid extra for meals in their hotel restaurant. 

At an average cost of £21 per person, the findings suggest that UK tourists spend in total an additional £20.8 million on food. 

Meanwhile, the survey also revealed that almost half of holidaymakers put themselves at risk of further expense by using their credit or debit card abroad instead of taking foreign currency. 

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No matter whether you’re holidaying at an exclusive villa or a popular resort complex, you’ll still need to sort out airport transfers – though possibly this is not such a problem for the Prime Minister.

David Cameron has eschewed a UK “staycation” and opted for a fortnight at a luxury Tuscan villa as he takes a break from the business of running the country.

He will stay in the 18th century property – complete with swimming pool and tennis court – situated near Mercatale Valdarno in Chianti. Mr Cameron, his wife Samantha and their three children will share their holiday with another two families, according to the Daily Telegraph.

With the villa coming in at 11,000 euro (£9,600) per week, the Camerons are expected to spend £5,800 as their share. They will also travel to Italy on a budget airline in the coming days, although it is not clear if they will take advantage of the transfers on offer.

The premier and his family will berth at the Petrolo estate, described as resting among “green olive groves, active vineyards and beautiful oak woods”, its official website says. Mr Cameron will follow in the footsteps of former PM Tony Blair, who took family holidays in Tuscany as a guest of Prince Girolamo Strozzi.

This is the first proper foreign holiday for the Camerons since the general election last year. Last summer, they stayed in Cornwall, where Mrs Cameron gave birth to the family’s baby daughter Florence. The little girl was given the middle name Endellion, after the village where they stayed – St Endellion.

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Britons are planning to spend more money when they go on holiday this year, a survey has suggested.

Some 32% of people said they would be spending more cash when they went abroad in 2011 compared with last year. 

The extra spending amounted to an average of £326 per person. 

The poll of 2,011 people by M&S Money found that 44% said they would spend the most money on eating out, while 12% planned to splash out on excursions.

Some 17% of holidaymakers said they would spend less while on their break this year, and 42% planned to fork out the same amount as they did in 2010.

Almost a third of those who expected to part with more money blamed the rising cost of living for their extra spending. Those who are worried about the cost of their holiday spending might be looking to save money on their travel cost this year, by searching for cheaper flights or using convenient airport transfers services rather than taxis.

Another survey has revealed that Britons will take an average of £451 spending money for a two-week holiday this year. 

The poll, carried out by currency company Moneycorp, found that 23% of respondents were planning to take less cash with them than they did last year. 

Rupert Bedell, of Moneycorp, said: “Disposable income for consumers is at a 10-year low and this has led to a smaller budget for many Brits going overseas.”

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More than 80% of British people go against the stereotype and try to buy food from local restaurants while on holiday, research has found.

It puts paid to the image that we roll off our airport transfers and spend the rest of our break in the resort, eating from the same fast food chains we have at home.

The survey shows British people on holiday do try to put something back into the area they’re visiting by eating locally, with a similar amount also making an effort to explore the country.

However the research, to mark Make Holidays Greener Week, found people don’t think about the impact their holiday will have on the area they visit before they fly away.

Some 75% said they don’t worry about whether their accommodation will be good for the environment or local community. 

There is still a minority who fit the stereotype of the ‘Brit abroad’. A tenth of those asked said they like to eat the same food on holiday as at home, mainly eating from food chains they know. And nearly a fifth of us like to stay in the resort for most of the holiday.

Make Holidays Greener Week aims to get tourists to think about how their relaxing break might impact on the local people and environment of the host country.

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For most people, travelling to the Seychelles will probably involve airport transfers, an early check-in at Heathrow Airport followed by duty-free shopping before they finally get away on their dream holiday.

Royal couple head to Seychelles?

For the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who are rumoured to have headed to the idyllic location for their honeymoon, getting there will probably have been a bit easier and a lot more private.

William and Kate already know about the warm weather and beautiful scenery that the Seychelles has to offer – they holidayed there four years ago.

In August 2007 the couple spent a week on the island of Desroches, which is only four miles long and can be found about 150 miles south west of the Seychelles’ main island, Mahe.

It was reported that William told islanders the Desroches trip was the best holiday he had ever had.

Desroches is the main island of the Amirantes Group – locations which boast exclusive resorts in the kind of setting that most honeymooners can only dream about.

The Seychelles is a classic get-away-from-it-all location, lying in the Indian Ocean between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Equator.

William and Kate will find that the Seychelles ticks all those honeymoon boxes – warm weather, white-sand beaches, seclusion, luxury and romance.

If that was not enough, the royal couple are even going at the right time of the year. The Seychelles get the wettest weather in January – when many Britons are tempted to go to get away from the worst of the UK weather.

But May in the Seychelles sees the start of the cooling trade winds that keep the temperature down in the evenings.

The couple can expect to have temperatures between 24C (75F) and 32C (90F) – plenty hot enough for swimming and diving if they fancy it.

If a little island-hopping is required then this is the place to do it, as the Seychelles is made up of more than 100 islands.

Desroches boasts the luxury Desroches Island Resort hotel. The island was named after the Chevalier des Roches, the Governor of Mauritius from 1767 to 1772.

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London mayor Boris Johnson has backed plans for a new airport in south-east England. 

He spoke as a report, which was overseen by Transport for London deputy chairman Daniel Moylan, said the failure to create a new hub airport in the region would see London suffer and lose jobs to its European competitors.

“For London to retain its position as the heartbeat of global business, we need aviation links that will allow us to compete with our rivals,” Mr Johnson said. 

With the existing airport transfers system in place in the region, a new location could complete the network and give tourists more choice when picking the location of their overseas getaways. 

High quality bus services between the airports, such as Luton to London and London to Stansted, might also remove the need for travellers to worry about leaving their car at the first airport they travel from. 

Mr Johnson is understood to support a new airport in the Thames estuary but the coalition Government has ruled out new runways in south-east England. 

The current report does not give specific information about a new site for the airport but a new report commissioned by Mr Johnson will consider the pros and cons of a number of locations for an additional airport. 

This will include options for a new airport which could be in the Thames estuary, as well as consideration of existing sites with the exception of Heathrow.

Mr Johnson’s backing for expansion not only puts him at possible loggerheads with the Government but also with those opposing airport growth, including residents’ groups and conservationists.

The report revealed that in terms of destinations served by worldwide international airports, Heathrow had fallen from second in 1990 to seventh in 2010.

The number of destinations that can be directly accessed from Heathrow is now 157, compared with 224 from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport and 235 from Frankfurt.

The report said this showed that London’s only hub airport was losing out to other European airports, which if sustained could have long-term damaging effects for the economies of London and the UK.

The report also said that an additional 85 million passengers a year or 564,000 annual flights could be generated at London’s airports within the environmental targets the Government has adopted.

It added that runway utilisation at Heathrow and Gatwick airports was operating at approximately 99%. This was causing delays and reliability problems. Heathrow is handling up to 75,000 more passengers a day than it was built for.

Runway utilisation was typically 70-75% at other major European hub airports.

Copyright Press Association 2011