If you self cater on holidays - what sort of meals do you make?

Are you actually making this every night on holidays?

As i said earlier i'm an excellent cook & we eat really nice food all the time at home but im just not prepared to spend my days / evenings in the kitchen.

We've been on some longer trips of a month in Europe / Australia & that's different. It's more similar to living there so first days we'll stock from the supermarket & i would cook simple, fresh stuff there. We'd also eat out a lot to try out new restaurants etc too

But if I'm away for a few days to a week I have zero interest in making lasagne from scratch. It's a total waste of my valuable time imo.

Also on a side note I see a lot of people saying they come home to make dinner & that's it - into pj's to watch TV for the night. Again that's an alien concept for us on holidays!

We love city breaks & we book an apartment rigbt in the heart of the city (usually in the old town if there is one)

We always have specific stuff we want to do & see & i love doing all the research & planning.

A typical day would include getting up & dh loves to go out early to get fresh bakery goods- croissants in paris, churros in Spain etc with coffee & juice & he brings it back & I'll of often have mine in bed with book or on a balcony overlooking the city if we have one

Up & ready then to head out to explore for the morning. If we're heading to a specific place like a museum or gallery I'll research nice lunch places in that location.

After lunch we'll wander, sight see, stop for coffee/ wine / beer / aperol etc watch the world go by.

Perhaps go visit something else we want to do or see particularly if it's an area of a city - we'll wander around & stop as we please.

We usually head back to accommodation around 4 /5pm & have some snacks- local crisps, olives, salami, wine / beer & a relax that usually involves a little lie down on the bed. Then a shower & get changed for the evening.

We go out for a drink & then I'll either have a booking in a restaurant or we'll have scouted one earlier in the day.

I'll look up places to eat under a range of criteria - sometimes best traditional food or best pizza or best tapas, best seafood etc

We're not really into fine dining too much but we will have a range of experiences

We absolutely love visiting the 'grand cafes' in Europe & make a point of researching of them & we go & have coffee & cake their & soak up the atmosphere

We go out every night. If we've eaten a big lunch we will have lighter smaller dishes at night or vice versa

We love a stroll around to find a gorgeous wine bar & sit for a few hours.

Often I'll book tickets to an event- music (we love jazz) & we've also gone to opera houses etc or we might be there to attend an event (exhibition opening etc) if we've friends living in that city we'll have dinner & drinks with them.

Our dc are young adults now & love coming with us. Often dc might have a friend with them & they'll be gone doing their own thing & we meet for lunch or dinner or a drink etc

When dc was a baby we brought her out with us for dinners) & when a toddler we tried to make our main meal at lunchtime as she needed to be in bed early enough

I didn't enjoy those hemmed in days as much though we always got nice food in & wine etc

Once she got big enough she came with us again. She's v adventurous with food & we all love going out

On longer trips we'd buy nice food in a deli or supermarket to just heat up. Or we'd order in & about every 3rd or 4th night we'd be out

But even if we'd eaten in we'd go out got a walk / drink after

I just could not sit around the apartment all night watching TV- i can do that at home any night. I'd hate to do it in an exciting busy new place!!!

Roast dinner, always - some kind of curry night usually with more than one type of curry and rice, homemade naan, bought in poppadoms but I make the chutneys and dips. Some kind of pasta night usually with a big lasagna and some other pasta dishes, salads and garlic bread. Fajitas, build your own burritos, roast ducks with hoi sin and pancakes, chow mein, pho, and so on. Crowd pleasers. Lunches - I make soups in bulk, make sausage rolls although I buy the puff pastry, cheese straws, seed breads with fritattas, salads and salsas, jacket potato bar with multiple toppings.

ObViously dessert is needed every day, so sticky toffee pudding, bread and butter pudding, pavlova, fruit salads, fruit crumbles, treacle sponge, profiteroles, the type of things everyone likes.

Just basic crowd pleaser to make sure everyone is fed and full

Are you actually making this every night on holidays?

As i said earlier i'm an excellent cook & we eat really nice food all the time at home but im just not prepared to spend my days / evenings in the kitchen.

We've been on some longer trips of a month in Europe / Australia & that's different. It's more similar to living there so first days we'll stock from the supermarket & i would cook simple, fresh stuff there. We'd also eat out a lot to try out new restaurants etc too

But if I'm away for a few days to a week I have zero interest in making lasagne from scratch. It's a total waste of my valuable time imo.

Also on a side note I see a lot of people saying they come home to make dinner & that's it - into pj's to watch TV for the night. Again that's an alien concept for us on holidays!

We love city breaks & we book an apartment rigbt in the heart of the city (usually in the old town if there is one)

We always have specific stuff we want to do & see & i love doing all the research & planning.

A typical day would include getting up & dh loves to go out early to get fresh bakery goods- croissants in paris, churros in Spain etc with coffee & juice & he brings it back & I'll of often have mine in bed with book or on a balcony overlooking the city if we have one

Up & ready then to head out to explore for the morning. If we're heading to a specific place like a museum or gallery I'll research nice lunch places in that location.

After lunch we'll wander, sight see, stop for coffee/ wine / beer / aperol etc watch the world go by.

Perhaps go visit something else we want to do or see particularly if it's an area of a city - we'll wander around & stop as we please.

We usually head back to accommodation around 4 /5pm & have some snacks- local crisps, olives, salami, wine / beer & a relax that usually involves a little lie down on the bed. Then a shower & get changed for the evening.

We go out for a drink & then I'll either have a booking in a restaurant or we'll have scouted one earlier in the day.

I'll look up places to eat under a range of criteria - sometimes best traditional food or best pizza or best tapas, best seafood etc

We're not really into fine dining too much but we will have a range of experiences

We absolutely love visiting the 'grand cafes' in Europe & make a point of researching of them & we go & have coffee & cake their & soak up the atmosphere

We go out every night. If we've eaten a big lunch we will have lighter smaller dishes at night or vice versa

We love a stroll around to find a gorgeous wine bar & sit for a few hours.

Often I'll book tickets to an event- music (we love jazz) & we've also gone to opera houses etc or we might be there to attend an event (exhibition opening etc) if we've friends living in that city we'll have dinner & drinks with them.

Our dc are young adults now & love coming with us. Often dc might have a friend with them & they'll be gone doing their own thing & we meet for lunch or dinner or a drink etc

When dc was a baby we brought her out with us for dinners) & when a toddler we tried to make our main meal at lunchtime as she needed to be in bed early enough

I didn't enjoy those hemmed in days as much though we always got nice food in & wine etc

Once she got big enough she came with us again. She's v adventurous with food & we all love going out

On longer trips we'd buy nice food in a deli or supermarket to just heat up. Or we'd order in & about every 3rd or 4th night we'd be out

But even if we'd eaten in we'd go out got a walk / drink after

I just could not sit around the apartment all night watching TV- i can do that at home any night. I'd hate to do it in an exciting busy new place!!!

I should have been more descriptive! We mostly only do this when we fly to the Caribbean to sail a boat around the islands, it is the most fantastic holiday, but the catering can be tricky if you dont want to anchor in a bay with a restaurant on the beach every night. The cooking space and appliances are quite limited on the boat, and the availability of food in the supermarkets can vary a lot as it depends on what shipments have come in that week. I also struggle to trust some of the food handling for the frozen and chilled foods since I have seen loads sitting on the docks for hours clearly going above food safe temps. So we take down our meat, frozen and some select ham/salami/cheddar options for sandwiches. It works really well, but you have to check the bag, there is no way TSA would let it through in hand luggage 🤣

You take meat abroad on a plane ?!
Is that even allowed, I’ve had a yoghurt confiscated before now , we needed it as daughter takes her medication in it.
They do have meat abroad, part of the pleasure for me is discovering new things in markets , or even supermarkets, a huge French supermarket is a wondrous thing. !

Nobody has mentioned bringing teabags from home. I don’t really care what we eat so long as I’ve got a brew first thing.

You can get a long way on paprika crisps, a baguette and some tomatoes. Ice creams to top up.

We are a cooking-from-scratch household of extreme health food the rest of the year, but I can’t be doing with prep or clearing up in a tiny ill-equipped kitchen on hols.