Trending: If you're staying at home this year, you'll clearly need a map

The recession-fuelled fashion for staycations is all very well, but it seems Britons are in danger of getting lost in their own backyard. One in five British adults couldn't tell you how many countries there are in the UK, a poll of 2,000 UK citizens found.

The royal family often holiday in the UK, at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, but more than half of those surveyed (53 per cent) couldn't say where that was.

One in five could not find the seaside resort of Blackpool on a map while the location of Stonehenge was a mystery to one in 20 people. When asked to name England's biggest mountain, 58 per cent answered either Mount Everest, Ben Nevis or Snowdon. A startling 25 per cent thought the Australian sandstone formation Uluru (Ayers Rock) was in the UK. Big cities fared no better, with over a third of people (33.8 per cent) suggesting that the Home Counties circled Manchester, Birmingham or Glasgow.

Karen Gee, of the travel operators Journeys of Distinction, which carried out the survey, said: "We were astounded that while Britons clearly have an enviable knowledge of famous cities abroad, they seem to display a lack of geographical awareness in their own nation."

Whether you blame our reliance on Google maps or SatNav – or the British weather – it's unavoidable. We couldn't locate the top sights of the British Isles if our holiday depended on it.