BRADFORD hairdressers Craig Chapman-Blackwell and Stuart McDonald run salons 50 yards away from each other and work hard all year to earn themselves a holiday.

However, when the couple take their breaks they tend to have a camera crew in tow!

Three years ago Wibsey hairdressers Craig and Stuart won the eighth series of Channel Four's Coach Trip which saw them travelling through Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey.

During their 19 days on the show they participated in games and activities including goat milking, white water rafting and truffle-digging. They even sang a duet in a Greek ampitheatre wearing togas, and performed rhythmic gymnastics with the Bulgarian Olympic team.

The couple hadn't planned to participate in another TV holiday programme, and had actually applied for Channel 4's Gogglebox when they found out about ITV's new Travel Guides series.

The four-part series sends five ordinary British households to review some of the world’s most popular tourist destinations - from an all-inclusive in Tenerife to a five star hotel in Dubai - to see what they can offer an average Brit.

Each week the same households travel to a different destination and experience identical holidays. Narrator Johnny Vegas guides viewers through the location, while the travel guides give honest and frank reviews about everything on offer - from the accommodation to the food to the activities.

In the first episode, aired last night, Stuart and Craig, accompanied by Craig's daughter Honor and her boyfriend Jonjo Naylor head for Thailand. With miles of tropical beaches and an exotic climate, the country attracts over 26 million tourists each year to its shores - making it the most popular destination for Brits visiting Asia. But it also has a reputation as being a destination for hedonistic backpackers that can be fraught with dangers.

The Bradford Travel Guides spend a week on the island of Koh Samui, getting the lowdown on what a holiday there can really offer.

But the trip doesn’t start smoothly for the family, with Craig not only having to battle with mosquitos but also with basic beach hut accommodation. He wants to go home as soon as he arrives - will the ‘land of smiles’ turn his opinion around?

"We had a backpacker's basic holiday in Thailand and an opulent lifestyle in Dubai but I liked them both for different reasons," says Stuart.

"I think it shows how one man's heaven is another man's hell."

Stuart, who runs the Davinci Salon was already a fan of Thailand, having holidayed there 12 times before but it was Craig that needed converting. "It is a very strange place to me but there is a lot undiscovered and that is what I wanted to see," says Craig.

SEE STUART AND CRAIG IN THE FIRST EPISODE OF ITV'S TRAVEL GUIDES

But he isn't ruling out a return. "I would like to go to some of the islands and we both love the food."

Craig says Honor and Jonjo also enjoyed the trip to Thailand and he believes they will also make a return to trip, but he says there is one element of the holiday he won't miss.

" I did not like the beach hut, it was not somewhere I wanted to go and I wasn't expecting to be eaten alive," he recalls.

Now back on terraferma, the well-travelled due have certainly enjoyed their trips.

"I think a big part of it is the unknown," adds Stuart. "It's the surprise element I suppose and it was certainly a surprise to me. When Craig and I go on holiday we call it a 'fly and flop' holiday - we go to the same place, may be the Canaries, and lay around the pool and that is what our holiday entails but this is what we would never do," he says, referring to the activities they participated in.

Craig, who runs C&H Hair, admits the travels were a challenge but on the whole they enjoyed visiting places they would never have been to.

As well as visiting far-flung places, the family also holidayed closer to home - in the Lake District, a place renowned for rain.

"We have been lucky with the weather wherever we have been. We have been blessed," adds Craig.

"It was a unique experience we would never have been able to explain to anybody. Until you have done it you can't really understand what a fantastic experience it is," says Stuart.

"When you are doing these programmes it takes you to places you would never ever go and they get you to do things you would never do. It is a whole new experience.

"We have been very lucky. We have been taken all around the world just to get our opinion."

Travel Guides is on ITV at 9pm on Mondays.