How do people afford good holidays

We're doing California this year. 1k each for flights, about 750 for car hire for a week, booking hotels indivdually - average 200 per night per room for a reasonable motel (not in LA). Food is super expensive though so I'd leave a higher chunk of your budget for eating/excursions than for accomodation/flights. Great place to vacation

Love Hawaii - Kauai is my top recommendation. Do you have to take your kids?

We’re off to cali for 3 weeks soon - 2 adults & 2 teens. Flights, airport parking, hotels inc breakfasts, universal, Disney, Warner bros, sports events, city tours, and trains all booked for about £12k. Everything researched/booked separately. Has taken a lot of planning! Obviously will have food spending on top once we get there. How we’re paying for it - we don't do it every year & we’re throwing in a bit of inheritance, a bit of redundancy money, and lots of saving so we can have ‘one big holiday’ before the kids are too old to want to travel with us…

Chat GPT isn't a travel agent or even a search engine so of course it's going to give you a stupid answer.

Get in touch with an actual travel company for a real quote.

Perhaps reconsider Hawaii, all I ever see is locals saying there is no ethical way to be a tourist there. I would personally also not visit the states while Trump is president given how many tourists have fallen foul of ICE and had a nightmare with it, but that's your call.

Who the fuck do you think you are? Childless people are relevant wherever they choose to be.

Lots of us came here because of the fertility boards and stayed. So sorry that my inability to have children is so offensive to you.

How does anyone afford anything? They earn more, have lower outgoings or have family money. We spend around £5k a year on holidays at the moment but spend £15k a year in nursery fees. When they go we would be able to afford £15k holidays if we wanted to. We have a high income but it’s not really high.

For my 50th, I used a specialist travel agent. They took care of everything and stayed within budget.

I honestly don’t think many people do that trip at all. I also think ChatGPT is not designed for factual information. You need to google and research properly.

Why does a good holiday need to be abroad?

We afford very nice holidays by having a decent income and low outgoings. We chose not to overstretch on housing or cars, and we don't have kids.

I'm not sure what it is you're looking for in a holiday but I've flown from San Francisco to Honolulu for about $400 return. I've also travelled around America quite a lot and it can be as cheap or expensive as you like.

A few years ago we did a west coast California road trip, us and two late teen DC for £14k. We save hard! We just took our two adult DC and their partners to Barbados for £12k

That’s an expensive holiday but not that expensive

quote I had for 14 days, 5 cali at a Disney hotel and the others in aulani, 2 adults 2 kids inc flights £15k BUT this is Disney so much more expensive than needs be and includes park tickets and lightening lanes so that’s about £2k

packages in general are more expensive but I guess it depends what you want to do in cali too

Use Google flights to track cheapest flights.

😱
we have a joint income of £60,000 and got to go abroad 4 times a year!
We still manage to save too!
maybe look at how you could cut back to save more and go on holiday

Depends what you call a good holiday. For my 50th I went to France for three weeks, it was brilliant and cost me about £1500 altogether.

But childless people are not relevant on the majority of these threads! This is asking how do families afford big holidays

Well not sure what parameters you’ve put in to ChatGPT but I’d say a very nice holiday for less than £10k is possible. The flights alone will cost £2500-3000 next summer.

I went to Japan for over two weeks with my child over Easter and no way did it cost me that much! You don't need to stay in a luxury hotel and there are flights cheaper than others. Also people save for special holidays!

Really? It's been a while since I saw this sort of comment. Basically because if you search for anything these days, MN threads come up and there's no equivalent space for people with no kids.

Ditto the amount of men on here these days. I go on forums with my interests that are mainly men and it's defo a different vibe.

Is it just me who finds it odd that people are on MUMS net who have no children :/

also that people call themselves a high earner 🤢 ick

You can go to California for me way cheaper than £15k

I don’t have holidays abroad - can’t afford it and I have no kids!

I think it’s because people don’t usually spend this on a holiday. I’ve travelled all over the world and never spent anything close to that.

Our most expensive was probably California, but it’s because we were in San Francisco for 2.5 weeks (I used to live there so wanted to actually have time to do things and see friends and relax). An Airbnb for 2.5 weeks at $120 a night (big house with 3 bedrooms) was probably the most I’ve ever spent on accommodation in one go. $2000 on accommodation, probably £1800 on flights for 2 adults and a child. We did do a few touristy days out, and restaurant meals, but a lot of self catering for breakfast and dinner, and a lot of picnics at the park or beach.

2.5 weeks in San Francisco and I’d guess we spent at an absolute max £5000, not including food shopping that we would have done at home anyway, for 3 of us.

We booked through trailfinders. It was a couple of years ago but we went to San Francisco then to Hawaii and then to Los Angeles. Didn’t stay in five star hotels just clean and basic but had a great time for £6500 for the two of us.

Hi,

We are doing a major holiday this summer (we are not wealthy but have saved for a long time) and we have organised the following for 10k for a family of 4 (children will be 14 and 9), so the eldest is generally priced as an adult.

• 15 nights in Florida.
• Flight from Gatwick to Orlando direct.
• Car hire at Orlando airport.
• 3 days universal park tickets (including new Epic park)
• 1 day magic kingdom pass.
• 4 nights villa hire in Orlando
• After 4 days of parks we will drive to Miami in evening (in hire carand return to depot in Miami).
• Then we have 3 night hotel stay with breakfast in Maimi with free time to explore.
• Then we have booked a 7 night cruise with Royal Caribbean including Coco Bay Bahamas. This is on Icon of the Seas, currently the worlds biggest cruise ship with food included (but no drinks).
• 1 night hotel stay when we leave cruise.
• Return flight from Miami to Gatwick.

I think for 10k this is well planned, but I scoured for deals/ shopped around.