How the fuck can people afford to go on holiday?

My last year of being a class teacher - zero hours contract next year. Booked a villa with a pool in the Dordogne first week in September - a third of the price it is during the summer holiday. Our 4 children and their partners will all be joining for at least part of the week.

lots of people don’t have an annual holiday abroad: we do some years, but not others.

for us we have 2 full time salaries and only one child; which helps a lot.

i will say that holidays are expensive: especially in the UK!

When the children were little we mostly did U.K. self-catering. When I was little, we mostly visited family.

Best holidays we had as kids where in haven in Wales even in rain lol

Think outside the box

We can comfortably live off my DHs salary. I also work, so this is ‘fun/doing up the house money/ my pension money. I’m also a very savvy holiday shopper. We do Eurocamp type holidays, I look around for the best deals on the parks and flights. I have also recently put a deposit down for a long haul holiday for next year which was an absolute bargain. We also do camping weekends which are relatively inexpensive.
travel is a big deal for me and DH, I would say it’s the one thing we spend money on. We love exploring new places and think it’s great for the kids too.
We have kept our mortgage low and a we run one second hand car, aren’t big drinkers etc.

We sometimes skip a year down to the cost. This year we’re just doing a city break for a few nights so I feel I’ve taken my youngest son away and also had a break ourselves! If you find a city break destination with a pool you can at least relax a bit as well and lots cheaper than 14 nights! When my eldest came as well I would often book the flights then find somewhere reasonable to stay. It actually worked out cheaper often to book a villa with a pool and then we would shop for most meals and have a few evening meals out at restaurants and a few in with a BBQ. We sometimes shared a large villa with friends.

Abroad doesn't = flight delays and heatwaves.

This is why we often go to quite remote AirBnBs and hire a car.

I think most people on this thread are bound by school holidays due to having children.

AirBnB in a village near Montpellier £600 for 11 nights. There were plenty cheaper, but we like to have our own rooms. We all get on well and will have a great time, but need our own space to do our own thing for periods of the day (and sleep).
Flights £500 - includes one hold suitcase and I paid for seat reservations.
Car hire £280 - just a little one.

Me and the 2 kids (25 and 15).

Obviously there are other costs:
Insurance, transport to the airport, leaving the car there, food/drink and whatever we do when we're there (hiring bikes, outdoor stuff and visiting towns).

A holiday is a priority for me. I am a lone parent, work full time and while I'm very happy, things can grind on. We've had some amazing times the 3 of us - holidays the boys will always remember.

I've never wanted to go home early, but I would happily cut this short.
On the plus side, I now know I'm very definitely not up for a holiday in the canaries.

I'm a teacher, so we're screwed in my house. I outv earn dh by a lot.
Getting 6 weeks off: great.
Having to pay premium prices to stay in a 2* hotel that pumps music until 2;has other people's kids running round until fuck knows when; has walls so thin you can hear people talking shit for hours; has gangs of kids playing knock and run: not great.
All those late nights and lost weekends throughout the year to pay for this. Not sleeping for the last 4 nights because of the inconsiderate twats at the hotel isn't quite the holiday i planned.
I hate this. I'm gutted. One week a year. Friends who go in June get nice places. We scrabble around to see what's cheap in July and end up in a shithole with arseholes. All I want is a week. In the sun, where I can relax with the family, very up early and go out and about but I haven't slept properly in days. Music is still pumping now.

Used to book last minute at a travel agent in person as in we'd fly the next day. Self catering to Minorca once 50% off.

Sounds like your husband needs to find something he can do from home the rest of the time.

I'm shocked at the price of everything this year. Just a night in Holiday Inn, is it just me, or have the prices shot up? The trains as well - prices have gone up, no? Flights to some extent, bit they always vary massively, so difficult to tell.

@zzar45

But if you scale up your spending it’s basically the same as what OP was looking at. * Your holiday was £900 because it was only 1 adult and 1 child, and only for 4 days. If you have 2 adults and 2 kids for a week then it’s £4k.*

Well yes. But the OP was asking how others could afford holidays which is what people have responded to.

That sounds absolutely miserable.
So no holidays just to punt your kids off to private school?

Try looking here. This is all inclusive less than 3k. Self catering or room only is an awful lot less than that
https://www.easyjet.com/en/holidays/mixedresultlist?ibf=true&to=10-08-2024&from=03-08-2024&dst=ALL&sAccId=&geog=ALL&flex=3&org=LGW,LTN,SEN,STN,BHX,MAN&aa=1&rooms=2_3:10|5|7&page=1&take=10&orderBy=price&orderDirection=asc

I travel a lot and I'd consider myself a pro at travelling economically. As others have said booking super last minute or super early is best.

I've booked weekend trips for £150 per person flights and hotels (nice hotel in Marbella).

If I go somewhere exotic the flights are expensive but it's cheap when you get there (South Africa, Colombia, Thailand etc) usually costs £1500 per person for 2 - 3 weeks. For those I book everything myself and either book flights far in advance or with points.

Just went to Menorca sharing 3 adults and a baby with TUI last minute package and it was £320 per adult, 4 nights for flights, hotel, half board and transfers. TUI often do kids for free. But actually our flight back was cancelled so now they owe us around £150 each in compensation. In other words we got 5 nights for around £170...

When I'm on holiday we do a mix of self catering and eating locally.

Spain and Greece are good options as eating out can be super cheap. In Spain most restaurants do 'menu del dia' at lunch time which is essentially 3 courses and a drink for a set price (€15 max on average but often less). Then we get tapas at the supermarket for dinner.

I don't have 3 kids though so I'll caveat with that.

Move to Scotland
Go on holiday whenever you want , take the kids out of school , no fines .
We go multiple holidays a year , always outwith school holidays.Our DC are in the top set of every class , zero impact on their education .
We will only stop doing this in exam years .
We go to to 4* plus only resorts / hotels
Either Half board or all inclusive.
Amazing bargains to be had out of term times.

If you don't like flight delays and heatwaves, you do realise you can take the Eurostar to Europe in the autumn / winter? It's a slightly absurd reason to write off travel

Why are you tied to school holidays? Just say your DC are ill and go on a short city break, somewhere in Spain, France, Italy maybe - flights to Milan can be pretty cheap and intercity trains are fabulous, food is cheap, there are plenty of AirBnbs. It's doable

I know. Let’s go to that lovely hotel we stayed in prior to Covid in Ibiza for a week in August. It’ll be about £5k mind.

Try £12k.

It really is a make of it what you want situation too. We have done a wide variety of different holidays with our DC and at vastly different prices - when they were toddlers I wanted to take them away and came out in cold sweats at booking a UK self catering holiday that was £150 for all of us for a week as money was so tight but we had a great time and I have wonderful memories of it. This year I’ve spent over 100 times that amount on holidays, they have been great but in a totally different but also equal way to my old £150 holiday. The price tag and where you go isn’t everything.

We definitely have to save for a holiday abroad, but as we don't have a lot of surplus money we've only managed it once when the kids were 16 & 19! It took about 2 years of saving and paid for a B&B hotel and all spending etc for a week.
Otherwise we save for a year and do a UK holiday for 5/7 days in a caravan/lodge or stay with relatives in Scotland, something like that.
We couldn't afford a holiday abroad every year but I'm very grateful for what we can manage.

2 nights camping in Cornwall for 2 adults, 1 child and the dog cost £102.
DH is self employed (as my username suggests he’s a farmer so takes a nominal wage) and I work 20 hours a week. This is the only holiday we will get this year and we had a lovely couple of days at the beach.