We’ve been National Trust members for two and a half years now. We’re really lucky in that we have tons of places that aren’t too far away – Morden Hall Park is reachable by bus, for example.

If we head towards Dorking we’ve got Polesden Lacey which has so much going on and loads of outdoors to walk around, as well as Box Hill, as seen on the cycling during the Olympics.

There’s loads more, but what we’ve loved the most is that you only need to visit four or five places to have made your money back – and having the freedom to visit different places and do activities is something we enjoy doing.

When we stayed in Exeter we made a visit to Killerton House for a wander around the grounds – and I know if we were to ever go to Cornwall on holiday then we’d make the most of our membership as the National Trust own a lot of the car parks there – which would save us a lot.

I’m from York and without realising I hadn’t been to our most famous National Trust place – The Treasurer’s House – that was put to rights this year when a proper visit was made, though no ghosts were to be seen unfortunately.

I love that you can visit properties – famous and not. Chartwell is the family home of Winston Churchill complete with fabulous grounds to walk around and explore.

The best thing I’ve found with having the membership is knowing we’re in a safe place – you’ve generally got grounds to walk around plus activities to do at various points in the year – just this year the National Trust have brought out the ‘50 Things To Do Before You’re 11 and 3/4‘ activities – something I hadn’t really looked at and assumed it was for older kids – yet actually a lot of the things suggested in there we have done. It’s worth a look anyway – you’d be surprised.

There’s lots of National Trust activities coming up, so stay tuned as we’ll be mentioning them a lot more!