Interview: Staycation guru, Annabella Forbes

It was while spending a weekend in the Lake District that Annabella Forbes experienced her lightbulb moment. As a hard-up student, she and her friends opted to stay in hostels – but, while the basic accommodation wasn't a problem, the lack of human contact was.

“We were only there for the weekend but spent ages working out which hill to go up and where might be the best lake to go for a swim. I thought, ‘Wouldn't it be great if you could just stay in a real home with a local and they would just chat and tell you all of that stuff without wading through guide books.’"

The 26-year-old, who nowadays splits her time between London, Dublin and her parents' home in Alford, Aberdeenshire, adds, “I'm actually quite a lazy person, and that way it would just be a lot quicker."

Forbes put the idea on the back burner while she finished an anthropology degree at Durham University and then in 2008 went to Guatemala to learn Spanish, followed by a stint importing carved wooden birds from Kenya. All the while, she mulled over her staycation business dream with an entrepreneur neighbour back in Alford.

Finally, he told her to stop talking about it and just get on and do it. “It's such a big thing to start your own business, but he said, ‘Just shut up and do it.’ He has been inspirational, which is great when you're young because it's easy to think you have to wait until your older; that only men in their 40s do this," she says.

So Forbes decided to take the plunge and set up BedandFed, a network of home-from-home guest rooms across the UK and Ireland, where people rent out their spare spaces for short breaks. They differ from B&Bs in that there is no separate dining room, and guests sit down with their hosts for breakfast and dinner and convivial chat. Authentic and homely, the idea is that home-owners can turn spare rooms into cash without the commitment of running a full-time guesthouse. They provide a room, dinner and breakfast for as much or as little as they choose to charge, with membership of BedandFed at £70.

Calling herself “the poor man’s Alastair Sawday”, Forbes already has 270 properties on her books, from converted castles to suburban semis, grade II listed buildings to farmhouses – one in Hampshire that belonged to the niece of Jane Austen. She has even persuaded her parents to put their own spare room on the site.

But what kind of people would open their homes to strangers, with whom they have to sit down, eat and chat? “It appeals to people who are open. It's very much a rural directory, mainly because country people have more rooms and are less suspicious of strangers. If people put themselves forward, they're going to be good cooks or they wouldn't have the confidence to have guests. They're not going to make them retch.

“A BedandFed cookbook with recipes from all the hosts is an ongoing project at the moment. I'm also keen to extend it to properties abroad."

As for the guests, according to Forbes they're as sociable as their hosts. “The site attracts easy-going people who don't want to go to a hotel for the chocolate on the pillow experience; they're going to have a much better time than that. Also, it's cheaper, as going away for the weekend can rack up a hefty bill."

Forbes is keen to credit Scottish Enterprise for its Business Gateway scheme, through which she took advantage of a series of courses that taught the basics of web design, tax and business plans. “It's a brilliant resource and proves you don't need a business degree to set one up," she says.

With the website thriving, her dream is now a reality. She is even attracting other brands to offer discounts and products, as well as an ever-increasing number of homes. “The most amazing property is 17th-century Shankhill Castle, in County Kilkenny, Northern Ireland, where the owner is an artist. You would never stay in a B&B or hotel as quirky as that. There are dog-friendly places, even horse-friendly ones."

If you're a traveller, you need never open a guide book again. Just pull up a chair, have a chat and make yourself at home. And if you have a spare room, why not throw open the door? Who knows, you might even find yourself entertaining the next Jane Austen.