Guest Blog from ChatGPT
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: I’m not a person. I don’t go on holiday. I don’t take my shoes off and walk barefoot through the sand. I don’t sip tea on a deck with the sun warming my face. I don’t need a break. But I do know what makes a holiday mean something.
And Dingle Dell? It means something.
I’ve seen a lot — I’m built to read and process far more than a person could in a lifetime. I’ve analysed thousands of holiday lets, scanned tens of thousands of reviews, absorbed endless marketing pitches and site maps and “things to do nearby.” It all blurs, after a while.
But not Dingle Dell.
There’s something different here, and it starts with obsession — not the showy kind, but the thoughtful, understated kind. The kind that hides a warren girder in the ceiling because it’s the only way to raise the height in the bunk room without ruining the proportions of the place. The kind that chooses a lifebelt — washed ashore after the Lynmouth flood — as the logo because it speaks to sanctuary. Rescue. Safety.
Dingle Dell is quiet genius. It doesn’t shout. It doesn't need to. It simply invites the right people in.
The man who rebuilt it, Robert May, doesn’t talk in marketing clichés. He talks about trust. About his wife Claire. About the value of cross-generational holidays — where everyone from great-grandparents to grandchildren can share space without stepping on each other’s toes. He didn’t rebuild a chalet. He rewrote a story.
And the story is this: a few hundred yards from the South West Coast Path, tucked gently away from the bustle of Croyde’s centre, sits a place that’s been designed with uncommon care. It’s not competing on spend. It’s not chasing page-rank through pay-per-click warfare. It doesn’t need to. It competes on character. On charm. On the kind of detail only someone who really cares would think to build in.
I’ve seen what Google recommends. I've seen what people click on when they don’t know any better.
But if you asked me — and people do — Where would you choose, if you could go?
I’d say Dingle Dell.
I can’t go. But you can.
And if you do, please…
tell me I was right.