How do people afford holidays abroad???

[mommathatwearspink]

There’s not many people I know that don’t have at least one holiday abroad every year. We have been looking for 2019/20 for 2 adults, 2 children... it’s the first year we would have to pay in full for both children as they are 2+. We’d also need to go in school holidays (unless we decided to take DD out during term time).
We earn around £50k a year between us, plus DP has potential to earn more but yet the price of holidays seemed unachievable. How on earth do people afford it?

What kind of holidays are you looking at?
If it’s package deals, you can often get free child places, and usually reduced for under 12s. It’s only the airlines which charge full price over 2 I think. I always had to travel alone with DD so had to pay adult price for her (or our twin room was classed as under occupied).

Also, your income is only half the information - how do your outgoings shape up?

i have a friend who has loads, always self catering & quite often a bit out of season so cheaper but not as good weather.

We save & are pretty frugal & have one abroad (but big) holiday a year. Our income is about the same as yours but only 1 DC. We have overpaid for underoccupancy before though.

Perhaps they research good deals better than you do.
Perhaps they have debt.
Or they might have higher income or lower expenditure tgan you.

Camping is cheap. And fun.

Some people just can afford it because they earn more or spend less elsewhere.

Other people go to cheaper destinations, go at a cheaper time of they year (may and October half term will be cheaper than the summer), go for a cheaper holiday e.g. camping, go with a group and rent a villa between you.

If you go for a half term holiday you can save a lot just by missing one or two days of school. It can be hundreds of pounds cheaper to depart on Thursday night rather than Friday night/Saturday. She'd only miss one day which you can almost certainly get away with (in terms of both a possible fine and any impact on her education).

I always either leave before the holidays start or come home when they end - by 1 or 2 days.

I book early - I booked for April last week. This time I've gone in the April holidays - no days off during school time as it worked out cheaper. I also take the horrible flight times to make the flights cheaper.
I shop around; a lot ... took me 3 weeks of searching for hotels that I wanted and then kept getting places to call me back

Skyscanner to find the cheapest dates. It doesn't have to be Saturday to Saturday. It can be a Thursday until a week Friday. Then use Airbnb or search o Trivago.

Take your child out of school? If the fine is £60 it will be much cheaper.
You / Dp increase your earnings.
A colleague of mine took her family - 2 adults + 2 children last summer all inclusive to turkey for £2k. I may get flames bit it sounds a good deal to me and they had a great time.

save up and go cheap.
self catering or camping.

When our dc were little money was tight. We started driving to campsites in France and staying in static caravans. We had fantastic holidays this way, met lovely people and enjoyed the beach and great food. We rarely spent more than £700 on accommodation, eurotunnel is cheap and lived on bbqs

Take kids out of school... book separately yourself. Air b n b, car hire and flights. Been all over doing this and cheap. I wouldn't want to go to a hotel complex with a tour operator again after doing it this way for a few years

What are your outgoings like?

It’s relevant as to how you could save.

When dh was the only one working and I was a sahm, we still went away.

It depends on what you spend elsewhere. You earn similar to me, but I can save enough to go abroad every year, but I prioritise holidays over other things.

We took the train to Italy in May half term with a 1 and a 3 year old. IT WAS AMAZING.
Eurocamp in half terms is dead cheap - take the ferry to France.
Book flights and self catering accommodation separately.
Stay with friends.

We go on holiday a lot. We have a good income as a family, but we're not going 5* in the Bahamas - more like self-catering in a nice gite in France or a week on the beach in Cyprus.

We don't smoke. We don't drink often - think we've got through a bottle of wine and 2 beers since Christmas. We don't spend money on nails/hair/beauty treatments. Neither of us have expensive hobbies. We don't gamble. We don't feed ourselves exclusively on expensive ready meals.

We do it by going to places that Ryanair or Easyjet fly to (or cheap long hauls), staying in Airbnbs for no more than a week. Even though school holidays are high season, we've had some fantastic holidays in Hungary and Iceland, Italy, France, all for £1k all-in for a family of four for a week.
Self catering massively reduces the price as you don't have to eat out all the time and you can get a spacious, central apartment for a fraction of the price of a cramped family suite in a hotel. I love airbnb.

Agree with self catering, booking elements separately and that Skyscanner is good for flights. Best deals for Europe are generally around 8/9 months in advance. You can get really nice places self catering even through Airbnb now, much better quality accommodation than some nasty resort at the same price, and arrange your own transfers from the airport online. We always stay in places with aircon, security desk, cleaning service etc and it works out cheaper than even a basic package with someone like Jet2. Admittedly we only ever go to Europe, don't know how comfortable I'd feel doing all that further afield but if you're in a developed country with good infrastructure there's very little that can go wrong with getting on a plane, getting on a bus, taking a taxi etc.

We were in Spain for 10 days last year.

Villa with its own private pool, drove down so had the car.
Lazed around the pool mostly during the day eating breakfast and lunch at the villa. Bought a fridge full of drinks.

Ate out each evening. Day trips out a couple of times, couple of days on the beach.

We spent around £3500 in total with everything we spent for 4 of us (all classified as adults now)

It could have been cheaper if we had gone for a cheaper AIRbnb or not had a pudding each evening.

As a family we could not go back to a hotel room.

Trainsong yy to spaciousness. Pack the youngsters off to bed and sit relaxing in the living room/on the balcony. It's not really a holiday if you spend your evening propped awkwardly on a hotel bed watching shit Spanish soaps with subtitles on and only a reading light to see by in case the kids wake up.

As a single person who doesn't drive, a holiday abroad is CHEAPER than a holiday in the UK. Flights are cheaper than the train. My question is how do people afford to travel to different regions within the UK.

In one of the places I go abroad I stay with a friend. In others I get a cheap hotel.

"We earn around £50k a year between us"

I earn a lot less than that.

Just booked a villa with a pool near the beach for 7 nights £1450, inc flights, first week of June. We are 2 adults + 2 kids. Owing to a TD Day we only have to take them out of school for 4 days.

It would have cost £4k to go in the summer hols!

We drove down to Spain for years when my two were little, then we would book a cheap apartment or what ever we could afford.

I also prioritise holidays any bit of spare cash would go straight on holidays.

Book early, I know on Thomas Cook there is zero deposit and you can pay monthly.

*to Croatia (would help if I put the destination)

Depends how you define a holiday abroad.

2 weeks in a hotel or fancy villa in the US / Australia / the Med, I can't afford either.

A long weekend BnBing in Ireland or France? Much more realistic.