IT'S January, it's dark, it's raining hard and the bills are coming in for Christmas and New Year spending sprees. What better time than now to book your summer holiday?

People are huddling closer to the fire and scanning through adverts, holiday websites and brochures, their attention drawn by irresistible photographs of sunny beaches and blue skies.

Holiday companies compete for custom, with tempting deals currently available to everywhere from Spain to France, Dubrovnik and North America.

A new Holiday Which? poll suggests holidaymakers are more satisfied with small, independent tour operators, such as Kuoni, Titan and Inghams, than the travel giants.

Cosmos was bottom of the pile, with a satisfaction rating of 57%, as opposed to Titan, top with 91%.

Many holidaymakers now exploit the internet to put together their own itineraries and book flights to match.

So travel firms are being shunned, but where are people going on their holidays?

Predictably, new airport figures show that Spain was the favourite holiday hotspot last year, with no fewer than 1.3million people jetting there from Scots airports. Other popular countries include the USA, France, Portugal, Turkey and Greece.

And the top 10 resort destinations for Scots include Palma, Alicante, Malaga, Tenerife and Faro, the capital of the Algarve. The list of longer-haul holidays has, for some time, included New York and Orlando, but adventurous Scots have increasingly been targeting such places as Dubai, Thailand, Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh and Mexico's Cancun.

Even Kenya remains popular, despite widespread unrest in which 600 people have been killed. Of course, many Scots won't be going abroad this summer, instead seeking some sun and fun in resorts across the UK.

Dodging the cold, winter rain, we asked you: Where are you going on your holidays this summer?